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MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON 


AND OTHER STORIES 










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MYSTERIOUS 

MRS. WILKINSON 

AND OTHER STORIES 


y 

W/ F.KNORRIS 

\\ 

AUTHOR OF 


“MARCIA,” “JACK’S FATHER” 


3776/ W 


NEW YORK 

JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY 

150 WORTH ST., COR. MISSION PLACE 


^ 2 . 3 


Copyright, 1891, 

BY 

UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY 


ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 


I wonder whether a man ever really forgets a 
single incident of his life — forgets it, I mean, beyond 
all possibility of recovery. I should be almost 
inclined to doubt it. I can’t help fancying that all 
my personal experiences are stored up somewhere 
about me in a sort of ghostly Record Office, and 
that I might search the archives if only I knew the 
trick of discovering them. It so often happens that 
some chance association of ideas awakens the most 
unexpected echoes in our memories, restores to us 
our youth, our boyhood, our childhood, and not only 
enables us to recall something that took place in 
those far-away days, but actually lifts us for a mo- 
ment or two out of our present into our past selves, 
so that we feel as we once felt and see as we once 


6 MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 

saw — until the vision fades and leaves us with a 
queer, painful sense of loss. 

I suppose everybody experiences this sensation 
occasionally. It came upon me very strongly one 
evening when I was sitting in the House, listening 
to Pole, who had embarked upon one of his deliberate 
attacks on the Home Secretary. Pole was humming 
and hawing a good deal ; frequently he paused for 
some seconds, trying to find the word that he 
wanted, and more than once, failing to find it, he 
went on quite cheerfully without it. He was not 
in the least embarrassed by his lack of eloquence ; 
he had a general idea of what he meant to express, 
and that was enough for him ; every now and again 
he looked at the Speaker with a kindly reassuring 
smile, as who should say, “ It’s all right. Only give 
me time and I’ll get through this thing somehow.” 
I knew he would get through it somehow, and I 
also knew that there was a pitfall ahead of him 
into which he was morally bound to tumble. And, 
sure enough, he did tumble into it. He tumbled into 
it, so to speak, with a crash which provoked some 
derisive laughter from the opposite benches ; where- 
upon the orator, who is always ready to do justice 
to a joke, even when he doesn’t understand it, 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 7 

began to laugh too, and then those about him were 
infected by his untimely merriment, and so by de- 
grees the entire assemblage, without distinction of 
party, became convulsed. 

It was at this moment that the House of Com- 
mons suddenly disappeared from my sight and was 
replaced by another chamber and quite different 
occupants. It is a long, low room, panelled with 
old black oak ; its benches are not filled by legisla- 
tors but by schoolboys, of whom I myself am one. 
Another boy is standing up, book in hand, constru- 
ing Homer. Mr. Speaker is represented by a gentle- 
man in cap and gown who is turning line after line 
of the Iliad out of literal into respectable English. 
This, at least, is what he thinks that he is doing ; 
but in reality he has got a little too far ahead and 
is taking the literal reading for granted, in a cer- 
tain impatient way that he has ; so that the osten- 
sible translator has only to catch the words as they 
fall and repeat them rapidly in order to be spared 
all personal trouble and responsibility. 

“ ‘ Thus he spoke, and hurled his spear,’ ” murmurs 
the master. 

“ Hurled his spear,” echoes the boy. 

“ « Nor did he miss him.’ ” 


8 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 


“ Nordidemissim.” 

“ Well,” says the master, looking up with a dawn- 
ing suspicion, 44 what is that ? ” 

“What’s what, sir?” 

44 What is 4 nor did he miss him ’ ? ” 

A pause ; and then — 44 First aorist, sir,” responds 
dear old Pole triumphantly, 44 from norclidemlzo ! ” 
He always used to be called 44 dear stupid old Pole” 
in those days : I believe there are people who call 
him so still. And yet I don’t think he ever quite 
deserved the epithet of stupid. He didn’t take the 
trouble to learn his lessons when he was a boy ; he 
doesn’t take the trouble to master the details of a 
subject now ; but he is so perfectly good-humoured 
and so imperturbable that he always has his wits, 
such as they are, about him, and it is difficult to 
make him look foolish. In later years I have known 
him, under pressure of emergency, show an ingenu- 
ity equal to that which he displayed in the invention 
of that amazing verb nordidemizo , and with happier 
results. 

I returned to actualities from my brief excursion 
into the past just in time to see the right honour- 
able gentleman, the Secretary of State for the Home 
Department, rise to crush the honourable member 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 9 

for Mid- Wessex. He could not order Pole to write 
out the lesson three times in Greek and English, but 
such punishment as he could inflict he did. His sar- 
casm was tremendous ; his allusions to the extraor- 
dinary ignorance of the laws of the land which 
seemed to prevail amongst those who were liable to 
be called upon to administer the same were of a kind 
to make members of the unpaid magistracy blush for 
their order ; and when in feeling accents he depre- 
cated the wanton waste of public time entailed by 
such speeches as that to which the House had just 
listened, I am sure we all felt that the complaint 
was for once not an ill-founded one. And Pole sat 
with his hands in his pockets and smiled and did not 
care two straws. If Pole can go on not caring like 
this I shouldn’t be surprised to hear of his obtaining 
an under-secretaryship one of these days. To be 
sure he will have to make haste about it ; for, alas ! 
it is something more than a quarter of a century 
since the verb nordidemizo was discovered. 

Pole and I had been friends — more or less friends 
— all our lives. There had been long periods during 
which we had seen little or nothing of each other, 
and latterly we had met as a couple of middle-aged 
men do, who have each his own affairs to think 


10 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 


about and have half forgotten that they were once 
boys together. But on that particular night I felt 
very kindly towards my old school-fellow. He had 
unconsciously given me back a few moments out of 
the good days that I shall never see again. I 
thought I should like to have a chat with him, and 
I was glad when he joined me later and, passing his 
arm through mine, said we would walk homewards 
together, as it was such a fine night. 

It appeared afterwards that he had something to 
say to me, but I didn’t know that at the time, and I 
began by reminding him of the old yarn above nar- 
rated, whereat he roared with laughter ; and so we 
fell to talking about Eton and about the masters 
who ruled there in our time, and about Spankie and 
Silly -Billy (I can’t help asking oH sont les neiges 
cVantan ? I know it is among the phrases which 
ought to be abandoned, but let me put it into a par- 
enthesis just for this once only) — I say, we went on 
entertaining one another with reminiscences of per- 
sons and things profoundly interesting to us, but 
perhaps not equally so to the general public, until 
we reached Bury Street, St James’s, where I live 
when I am in London, and Pole remembered that he 
had not followed me for mere purposes of gossip. 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. H 

“ I rather wanted to have a little talk with you, 
Walmisley,” he said. “ Might I come in for a few 
minutes ? ” 

Naturally, I made him welcome, and when I had 
provided him with a cigar and with something to 
drink he confided to me that he was in trouble. 

“ What is it ? ” I asked. “ It isn’t money, I pre- 
sume.” Indeed I knew it could hardly he that; for 
Pole is a wealthy man, and has never been a spe- 
cially extravagant one. 

“No,” he answered; “it isn’t money.” 

“ Then,” said I, “of course it’s ” 

He replied without giving me time to finish my 
sentence, « Yes, it’s the other thing. I met her at 
an hotel in Switzerland last summer, and when you 
have seen her, I think you’ll admit that, as far as 
looks and manners go, she is the equal of any wo- 
man in London. If I had only myself to consider, I 
shouldn’t hesitate for a moment ; hut there are the 
children to be thought of, and then my people have 
been bothering me about it ; and if there’s one thing 
that I hate more than another, it’s having a row 
with my people.” 

Pole had been for some years a widower, and had 
two little girls, of whom his mother took the prin- 


12 MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 

cipal charge. It had always been expected that he 
would marry again some day; but I suppose old 
Mrs. Pole had a not unnatural wish that his second 
wife should be, as his first had been, a lady of rank. 

“ Well, who is she? ” I inquired. 

He said that she was a Mrs. Wilkinson and that 
she was a widow ; after which he came to a stand- 
still, as though there were no more to be told about 
her. 

“ Yes,” said I, “ and afterwards ? ” 

“Ah, my dear fellow, that’s just it; there’s 
nothing afterwards. I know nothing more, and I 
can’t find out anything more. And then, you know, 
my mother cuts up rough and begins to cry. Mrs. 
Wilkinson is in London ; she has taken a house for 

the season— and a very pretty little house it is and 

she seems to have lots of friends, only nobody can tell 
me her history.” 

“Pole,” said I gravely, “you did well to come to 
me. You must not be allowed to make a fool of 
yourself. May I ask whether you are very much in 
love with this widow ? ” 

He looked a little sheepish and answered, with a 
laugh, “ Oh, well— aren’t we rather too old to talk 
about that sort of thing? I thought her awfully 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 13 

kind and pleasant, and I have always felt that as my 
girls grew up they would need somebody to look 
after them. That was how it began, and ” 

“ I feel sure that it ought not to go on,” I inter- 
rupted. “ If your daughters are to be provided with 
a stepmother, she mustn’t be an unknown Wilkin- 
son.” 

“Well, no— perhaps not. But she may not be 
utterly unknown after all. I thought I’d consult 
you about it, because in the first place, you’re such 
a sober, sensible sort of chap, and also because Mrs. 
Wilkinson has a Miss Warde staying with her 
whom I expect you know. Her family live in your 
part of the world, and I dare say she could give you 
information. I didn’t like to pump her myself.” 

As the Wardes are neighbours of mine in the 
country, it seemed probable that I should have no 
difficulty in finding out about Mrs. Wilkinson’s 
antecedents from them ; but my impression was 
that Pole was not particularly anxious that these 
should prove satisfactory. Before he left me I was 
able to form a tolerably shrewd guess at the state of 
affairs . My poor friend had evidently fallen a victim 
to the stratagems of the wily widow. He had gone 
farther than he had intended and now wished to 


14 MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 

withdraw; only he did not see how an honour- 
able withdrawal was to he accomplished. Now I 
flattered myself that I had some little knowl- 
edge of the world and of women (am I not forty- 
two years of age and a bachelor ? ), and I thought it 
would be odd if I couldn’t disentangle this excellent 
and scrupulous man from the meshes. “ Leave it to 
me,” said I. “ To-morrow you shall take me to call 
upon your mysterious Wilkinson, and whether she 
proves to be a suitable person or not, you may de- 
pend upon it that she shall not marry you against 
your will.” 

He demurred a little to this way of putting the 
case. “ It wouldn’t be exactly against my will, you 
know, Walmisley ; only it is such a bore to have 
family rows, isn’t it ? ” 

I replied that it was the first duty of a good 
citizen to avoid such calamities ; and with that we 
parted. 

One ought always to be upon one’s guard against 
forming preconceived notions of people. The result 
of finding them altogether unlike what one had ex- 
pected them to be is that one’s judgment is thrown 
off its balance and one’s power of arriving at a 
really impartial estimate lost. For some reason — or 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 15 

no reason — I had taken it into my head that Mrs. 
Wilkinson would be big and handsome, that she 
would have a good deal of manner, that she would 
still be in half-mourning for her late husband, that she 
would not improbably wear about her neck a large 
jet locket with the date of his demise incrusted upon 
it in diamonds, and finally, that she would be much 
pleased at adding the reader’s humble servant to 
the list of her acquaintances. When, therefore, I 
was introduced on the following afternoon to an 
extremely pretty and rather demure-looking little 
woman, whose blue eyes had an expression of 
almost childlike innocence and whose quiet but per- 
fectly-fitting frock matched these in colour, I was, I 
must confess, somewhat taken aback. Moreover, 
although she received me very civilly and did not 
look exactly surprised at seeing me, there was just 
something in her demeanour which suggested the 
query, “ To what do I owe this pleasure ? ” — and 
such suggestions are disconcerting. Pole was not 
the sort of man who would see anything out of the 
way in taking one of his friends to call upon a lady 
with whom he was intimate, but the proceeding was, 
of course, a trifle irregular, and I should never have 
been guilty of such an irregularity had I not chosen 


16 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 


to assume that Mrs. Wilkinson was a person with 
whom there was no occasion to stand upon 
ceremony. As it was, I was glad to be able to ex- 
plain my visit by saying that I knew Miss Warde’s 
father and mother and hoped to have an oppor- 
tunity of paying my respects to the young lady her- 
self now that she was in London. 

Miss Warde, however, had gone out ; and so we 
sat and talked for a while to the widow, who, as I 
was obliged to acknowledge to myself, was not only 
unobjectionable but decidedly attractive. 

“ You are a great politician, are you not, Colonel 
Walmisley?” she asked. “ I think I ought to tell 
you at once that I am a Liberal, so that you may 
know the worst of me. But Mr. Pole says my case 
is not such a very bad one as some people’s, because 
I don’t really know the difference between the two 
parties.” 

“ I am rejoiced, Mrs. Wilkinson,” quoth I, in my 
happiest manner, “ to hear that your Liberalism is 
not very profound; because, if it were, I should 
tremble for our friend Pole’s allegiance.” 

She looked full at me with a momentary serious- 
ness, but began to smile again almost immediately. 
“ I suppose,” she remarked, “ that a good many of us 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 


17 


accept our political convictions as we do our religious 
creeds. We are born Catholics or Protestants, 
Conservatives or Liberals, and it isn’t worth while 
to change.” 

“Were you born a Liberal?” I inquired, for I 
thought she might take this occasion of enlighten- 
ing us as to her origin. 

“ Those with whom I have lived have been 
Liberals for the most part,” she replied. “ But you 
are a soldier first and a Conservative afterwards, 
isn’t that so ? You would let the Radicals have 
their wicked will as regards a great many things, 
if only they would leave the army alone. I am sure 
you must be right. How can a civilian Minister 
know anything of military matters ? I read your 
speech the other day about the difficulty of getting 
good non-commissioned officers, and, ignorant as I 
am, I could not help seeing that your facts are un- 
assailable. And is it really the case that our poor 
army is going from bad to worse ? ” 

I said it was — and so it is. That is perfectly 
true. If I am asked for my opinion, of course I 
must give it ; but I would not have it supposed that 
I am so simple as to be taken in by every lady who 

has found out my hobby and chooses to simulate 
2 


18 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 


an interest in it. Very nearly all of them do this, 
and I hope I know their ways well enough to he 
aware that they act in a precisely similar manner 
when they have to deal with my friend Admiral 
Bunting, or with Drinkwater, the great temperance 
advocate, or indeed with any individual who 
happens to be more or less of a specialist. Never- 
theless, I am quite willing to admit that flattery 
soothes me, even when I know it to be flattery, and 
that to be listened to with respect and every appear- 
ance of pleasure by a pretty woman is a great deal 
more agreeable to me than being contradicted and 
pooh-poohed and snarled at, as I too often am by 
certain other hearers of mine. I certainly enjoyed 
my visit, and when Mrs. Wilkinson invited me to 
dine with her quietly on the following Thursday, I 
accepted without hesitation. Why shouldn’t I dine 
with her? She lived in a remarkably well-ap- 
pointed little house in South Kensington, and from 
the general look of her surroundings I judged that 
she would give me a good dinner. I thought her 
very nice, and said so candidly to Pole, as we walked 
away. 

“ But you know, my dear fellow,” I added, “ it is 
one thing to make friends with a pleasant, chatty 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 19 

woman from no one knows where and quite another 
thing to marry her. If you will be advised by me, 
you won’t drop her suddenly, hut go on visiting her 
just as usual, and gradually let her see that you 
don’t intend to propose. Then, if I know anything 
of women, she will drop yow.” 

“ That,” said Pole, rubbing his head rather rue- 
fully, “ will be most satisfactory, no doubt.” 

Very evident it was to me that Pole stood in 
sore need of a staunch and determined friend to 
look after him. I suspected as much then, and I 
was quite certain of it a few days later, when the 
little dinner to which I had been so hospitably 
invited took place. Estimated by the number of 
guests who sat down to it, it was a very little 
dinner, for these consisted simply of Pole and my- 
self. So long as we remained at table the conver- 
sation was general, and indeed could not very well 
have been anything else with only four people 
present; it was in the drawing-room afterwards 
that I discovered how serious matters were. I 
found that I had to talk to Miss Warde (who is 
twenty-two years younger than I am and may 
possibly think me an old bore), while the other 
couple withdrew to a remote corner and conversed 


20 MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 

together in an undertone. Pole was sitting very 
close to his fair hostess ; I saw him gazing at her 
with an immense admiration in those sleepy eyes 
of his. It was clear that he was no more able to 
escape than a mouse with whom a cat has begun to 
play. I can’t say that Mrs. Wilkinson flirted 
vulgarly, nor perhaps was she flirting at all, in any 
offensive acceptation of the word ; but I could not 
doubt that it was her purpose to change her 
present name for that of Pole, and I felt sure 
that, if she were not interfered with, she would do 
it too. 

Well, I didn’t blame her. A cat may look at a 
king, or may play with a mouse, or may marry a 
Pole, without infringing any law, human or divine. 
From her point of view, she was perfectly entitled 
to behave as she was doing ; it was only from my 
point of view and from that of my friend’s relatives 
that she was bound to give an account of herself 
first. 

I was not long in arriving at the conclusion that 
no account of her was obtainable from Miss Warde. 
That young lady was so reticent, when casually 
questioned upon the subject, that I at first suspected 
her of having something to conceal; but I satis- 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 


21 

fiecl myself after a time that she only withheld par- 
ticulars from me because she did not happen to be 
in possession of any. I elicited the fact that the 
Wardes had spent the previous summer in Switzer- 
land, where it seemed tolerably safe to assume that 
they had picked up Mrs. Wilkinson ; and that the 
latter should be anxious to establish a connection 
with people of such undoubted respectability was 
comprehensible enough, 

“ It was so very kind of her to ask me to stay 
with her,” Miss Warde said gratefully. “ I had 
made up my mind that I was to have no season this 
year ; for papa’s gout had been so bad lately that 
he had hated the idea of leaving home, and mamma 
would not consent to come up without him.” 

It struck me that both papa and mamma would 
have been more prudent if they had not consented 
to let the young lady come up without them ; but 
that was just what might have been expected of the 
Wardes. They are a simple, innocent old pair, who 
follow the absurd rule of trusting every one who 
has not been proved unworthy of trust, and I was 
not at all surprised that they should have confided 
their daughter to the chaperonage of a total stranger. 

However, that was their affair, not mine. My 


22 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 


business was to get upon Mrs. Wilkinson’s track 
and follow it back to its starting-point. When I 
say that this was my business, I mean that I had 
resolved, in poor Pole’s interest, to make it so. He 
honestly avowed to me, after we had left the house, 
that he distrusted himself. “ It’s all very well to 
tell me that I’m thinking of doing a confoundedly 
foolish thing,” he said ; “ but between you and me, 
my dear old chap, I’ve been doing foolish things all 
my life long, and I suppose I shall keep up the same 
game to the end of the chapter, unless somebody is 
kind enough to knock me down and sit on my head 
until the temptation passes.” 

I assured him that he might rely upon me to do 
him this service, in a figurative sense, if necessary, 
and that I would at once set about making the in- 
quiries which the case appeared to call for. 

I did so ; and my surprise at finding what a num- 
ber of people knew Mrs. Wilkinson was equalled 
only by my disappointment at the very meagre in- 
formation that they were able to give me respecting 
her. Most of them had made her acquaintance 
through Miss Warde, and those who had not had been 
introduced to her by those who had. It seems to 
me that people have come to attach very little im- 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 23 

portance to credentials in these days. Here was a 
woman about whom absolutely nothing was known 
except that she was pretty and agreeable and ap- 
parently well off ; but that was quite enough for the 
easy-going folks who partook of her hospitality and 
made her welcome to theirs. She might have been 
the daughter of a common hangman for anything 
that they cared. 

Of course I heard rumours about her. One well- 
informed person declared that her husband had been 
an American pork-butcher in a large way of busi- 
ness ; another professed to have discovered that she 
had an interest in the firm of Wilkinson and Simp- 
son, linen-drapers in the City ; while a third was 
sure that he had seen her upon the stage not many 
years back. But all this was obviously pure conjec- 
ture. The only certain thing was that she did not 
belong to any family that one had ever heard of ; 
and this negative conclusion was all that I could 
carry back to Pole at the end of ten days of diligent 
research. 

During this time I had seen Mrs. Wilkinson more 
than once, and I can*©t deny that the favourable im- 
pression which she had made upon me at the outset 
was increased by each visit that I paid to her. I 


24 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 


was obliged to acquit her of being an adventuress : 
her quiet self-possession, her unconsciousness of 
being watched, everything about her made it im- 
possible for any unprejudiced observer to think of 
her as that. If her position was not quite assured, 
and if she desired to make it more so by a good mar- 
riage, her ambition was surely a natural and par- 
donable one. But I need hardly point out that this 
made her all the more dangerous. Pole, I could see, 
was wavering miserably. Common sense, his duty 
to his children, and a horror of family jars were 
drawing him in one direction ; Mrs. Wilkinson and 
his inclinations were pulling hard all in the other. 
One did not need to be a conjuror to foretell which 
side would get the best of it in that tug of war. 

And now, I suppose, I may as well confess what, 
under these circumstances, commended itself to me 
as the best course for a true friend to pursue. What 
I am going to say may sound a little fatuous, but I 
am sure that those who know me will concede that 
vanity is not one of my defects. I must explain that 
I had called upon Mrs. Wilkinson several times, that 
I had found her alone and had sat some time with 
her, and that we had got on very well together — 
remarkably well. Now, although I am neither as 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 


25 


rich, nor as good-looking, nor, it may be, as amiable 
as Pole, I am still among those whom many ladies 
are pleased to consider eligible bachelors, and I could 
not help fancying that, as a pis-aller , Mrs. Wilkinson 
might be willing to substitute me for the suitor of 
whom I was resolved to deprive her. I thought 
that when she found out that Pole’s attentions were 
not likely to have a serious result (and we know 
how soon women discover these things), her first wish 
would be to show him that she had another string 
to her bow, and I thought also that a natural feeling 
of resentment would prompt her to dismiss the old 
love immediately on taking up with the new. As 
for me, I had no fear of falling into the snare out of 
which I intended to drag my friend. I am not sus- 
ceptible, like poor Pole ; I bear a character for cau- 
tiousness, which I believe that I deserve ; and I 
doubted not but that, at the end of the season, I 
should be able to retire quietly, without having 
compromised either Mrs. Wilkinson or myself. 

So I set to work to delude this poor, confiding lit- 
tle woman, who only wished to secure a protector in 
a world where women are sadly in need of protection, 
and who was evidently far from imagining that 
middle-aged gentlemen were capable of practising 


26 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 


those arts of which her sex is apt to claim a mono- 
poly. It really was too had of me. I quite felt that 
at the time, and took myself to task rather severely 
about it. But in arguing the case out with my con- 
science, I put it in this way. My first duty was to 
my friend. Very well: was there any other method 
of saving him ? I could see none. For his sake, 
then, I must inflict a slight disappointment upon a 
lady whom it grieved me to disappoint, but to whom, 
nevertheless, I was bound by no special tie. Observe, 
the disappointment would only be a slight one. I 
did not for one moment suppose that Mrs. Wilkinson 
would fall in love with me, nor was it any part of my 
design to ensnare her affections. No ! I can lay my 
hand upon my waistcoat and say that no feminine 
heart has ever been broken by me. What I proposed 
to do was to rescue Pole by means of a little harm- 
less stratagem — nothing more than that ; and I must 
say that my first efforts were crowned with a suc- 
cess which I had hardly anticipated. 

I won’t assert that Mrs. Wilkinson exactly led me 
on, but she certainly seemed to be very much pleased 
with the various signs of friendship which I thought 
fit to display towards her, and responded to them 
almost eagerly. It was not all pretence on my part ; 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 27 

I really liked her and enjoyed listening to her artless 
prattle. I daresay she humbugged me a little, but 
I think I have already mentioned that I don’t mind 
being humbugged by pretty people. 

“ Colonel Walmisley,” she said to me one day, 
“ will you do me a great kindness ? Will you get 
me a place in the ladies’ gallery of the House of 
Commons for the day after to-morrow ? ” 

“ With the greatest pleasure,” I replied ; “ only I 
am afraid ' you will not he amused. There will he 
nothing worth listening to the day after to-morrow.” 

“ Oh ! ” she said, “ but I thought I saw that you 
had given notice of a question for that day.” 

I explained that questions and debates were two 
different things. I was not going to make a speech ; 
and if I were 

“If you were,” she interrupted, “I should cer- 
tainly manage to he present, by hook or by crook. 
Why do you speak so very, very seldom? But I 
think, if you don’t mind, I should like to be in the 
House the day after to-morrow, all the same.” 
And as she said this she glanced up at me with a 
sort of timid look in her blue eyes, which I daresay 
I should have found perilous if I had been a younger 


man. 


28 


MYSTERIOUS MRS . WILKINSON. 


Since she made a point of it, I did as I was re- 
quested, and in due time she had the satisfaction of 
hearing me ask the Secretary of State for War 
whether it was the case that the 124th, 160th, and 
176th regiments had only been raised to the required 
strength for proceeding on foreign service by means 
of reducing their respective linked battalions to a 
condition of practical non-existence, and whether it 
was proposed to take measures, and if so, what 
measures, to put an end to a state of things calcu- 
lated to convey a false impression of the numerical 
efficiency of the standing army. The right honour- 
able gentleman, who, I think, is sometimes needlessly 
curt in his replies, got up, grunted out, “ No, sir,” 
and sat down again. On being further pressed, he 
said that his answer referred to the first part of the 
question put by the honourable member for Wee- 
hampton ; the remainder, being grounded upon a 
mistaken assumption, did not, he conceived, call for 
any remarks from him. Thereupon his colleagues 
cheered— though I really don’t see what there was 
to cheer about — and the incident ended. 

An ordinary, common-place person might have 
been disposed to think that I had been rather 
snubbed than otherwise, and might have refrained 


MYSTERIOUS MRS . WILKINSON. 


29 


from complimenting me upon the lucidity with 
which I had expressed myself ; but not so Mrs. 
Wilkinson, whose forget-me-not blue eyes saw many 
things that were hidden from duller mortals. She 
had seen, for instance — so, at least, she afterwards 
assured me — that the War Minister had fidgeted 
about uneasily on the Treasury bench while I was 
speaking, and she was convinced that I had made 
him very uncomfortable and angry. “Why,” she 
asked, “ did you not go on at him until he told the* 
truth? I feel certain that he was not telling the 
truth, and I think you let him off far too easily. If 
I had been in your place, I should have insisted 
upon his giving me some proof that those unfortu- 
nate regiments had not really been robbed of all 
their men.” 

I pointed out to her that such a course would not 
have been in accordance with parliamentary usage ; 
but she rejoined that that only showed that parlia- 
mentary usage was one of the things which cried 
aloud for reform. “How can you be a Conserva- 
tive,” she exclaimed, “ when there is so much that 
requires to be improved or done away with ? A Con- 
servative, I suppose, does not wish to see anything 
that is established altered, whether it is bad or good.” 


80 MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON . 

Possibly she made this preposterous assertion only 
in order to give me an opportunity of expounding 
the true meaning of Conservatism. She may have 
guessed that that task would not be distasteful to 
me, and may have intended all along to declare — as 
she did the moment that I had made an end of 
speaking — that she now understood the dangers of 
the Radical programme and would never call herself 
so much as a Whig again. It is not at all likely that 
her sudden conversion to patriotic principles was the 
result of my eloquence ; but after all, a convert is a 
convert, and I imagine that there is joy among the 
missionaries over more than one ex-Pagan who has 
been brought into the fold by other incentives than 
those of pure conviction. 

Pole, who chanced to be present when Mrs. Wil- 
kinson made her new profession of faith, looked 
rather disgusted. “You never allowed me to con- 
vince you that you had taken up with the wrong 
side,” he said reproachfully. 

“You never tried,” she retorted. “You only 
laughed at me, and said I didn’t know what I was 
talking about.” 

“ Well, but that wasn’t so far off the truth, was 
it?” 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 31 

“ I am afraid it was very near the truth indeed ; 
but there are some truths which it is polite and 
politic to ignore. Colonel Walmisley, you see, was 
kind enough to treat me as if I were a rational 
being.” 

“ And he has his reward,” muttered Pole, with as 
near an approach to ill-temper as his nature was 
capable of. 

In truth my friend showed little gratitude for the 
trouble that I was taking on his behalf. The next 
time that we were alone together he assumed so dis- 
satisfied and moody an air that I thought I had better 
come to some sort of an understanding with him. 
I did not deem it wise to reveal my plan to him in 
all its crudity, but I gave him a general idea of what 
I was about. “ It is for your sake, my dear fellow,” 
said I, “ that I am trying to make myself agreeable 
to Mrs. Wilkinson. I want to create a diversion, in 
order to cover your retreat, and I believe I shall 
manage it, if you don’t put spokes in my wheels.” 

He was so good as to say that he supposed I meant 
well. “ But is it necessary to be so — so infernally 
agreeable ? ” he asked. 

I replied that it was, and that I hoped he would 
eventually appreciate the sacrifice that I was making 


32 MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 

in giving up my afternoon rubber of whist for the 
sake of drinking tea daily with a lady of whom I did 
not happen to be enamoured. I was not so un- 
reasonable as to expect that he would thank me at the 
time. No one likes to be cut out, and I was not at 
all surprised to find that his attentions to Mrs. Wil- 
kinson increased after this, and kept step with my 
own. There was no longer so much reason why he 
should not be attentive to her if he liked. My im- 
pression was that she had taken his measure, and 
that she considered me far more likely to make her 
an offer of marriage than he. She treated him very 
kindly in the main, only every now and then allow- 
ing herself a little smiling, feminine home-thrust, 
under which he winced ; but it was for me that all 
her favours were reserved. 

I never saw a man more bewildered than Pole was 
by this abrupt change of front. Even I, who have 
long ceased to be astonished at the keenness of 
women’s vision, had hardly been prepared for so 
speedy a success, and my poor friend evidently could 
not make head or tail of it. Sometimes he seemed 
inclined to accept the situation and would absent 
himself for two or three days together ; but he always 
came back at the end of that time, looking like a 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 33 

schoolboy who has been playing truant, and bearing 
in his hand, as a peace-offering, a box of French 
bon-bons, of which Mrs. Wilkinson was excessively 
fond. 

It was after one of these periodical returns to his 
allegiance that he invited us — that is to say, Mrs. 
Wilkinson, Miss Warde, and myself — to dine with 
him quietly at Richmond. He remarked ingenuously 
that he thought we all wanted something to raise 
our spirits a little. 

“ I am not conscious of being in low spirits,” Mrs. 
Wilkinson said; “but I should like very much to 
dine at Richmond, though I haven’t that excuse. 
Only I don’t know — is it quite the proper thing to 
do ? I have lived so much out of England that I am 
afraid I have forgotten what is permissible and what 
isn’t. Colonel W almisley, would it be right for me to 
take Miss Warde to an entertainment in the suburbs 
with two gentlemen ? ” 

“ Perfectly right in the present instance,” I an- 
swered. “ It all depends upon who the two gentle- 
men are.” 

She had taken lately to appealing to me in this 
way, and really I rather liked it. I suppose that no 

man would find it altogether objectionable to be ap- 
3 


34 MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 

pointed director of a charming woman’s conscience, 
and I was glad — for Pole’s sake — that she should 
thus openly show how much importance she attached 
to my good opinion. For Pole’s sake, too, I betook 
myself cheerfully to Richmond on the day named. 
As a general thing, I don’t see much fun in going 
such a long way for one’s dinner ; but when one has 
made up one’s mind to do a good turn to a friend, 
one must not stop at small sacrifices. I say, I ac- 
companied my friends to the Star and Garter with 
a smiling countenance, and as the dinner proved fairly 
good and the evening was a lovely one, I may add 
that I enjoyed myself. 

To all appearance Mrs. Wilkinson also enjoyed 
herself. As for the remaining two members of the 
quartette, they doubtless had their respective reasons 
for looking somewhat sad. I should have mentioned 
before this that Miss Warde had an admirer — a 
young man of fortune, Seymour by name, whom I 
often met at Mrs. Wilkinson’s, and who received a 
good deal of friendly encouragement from that lady. 
The willingness of Mr. and Mrs. Warde to let their 
daughter appear through a whole season under the 
wing of a chance acquaintance was perhaps not 
wholly unconnected with Mr. Seymour’s presence in 


IYSTERIOTJS MRS. WILKINSON. 35 

London. By an oversight Pole had not asked him 
to join our little party ; and this I suppose, accounted 
for Miss Warde’s grave looks, which both I and our 
host noticed. The latter took me aside just before 
dinner and whispered his regret at this unfortunate 
omission. 

“ Awfully stupid of me ! ” he said. “ What a 
duffer I am ! But one can’t think of everything,” 
he added, sighing. 

“ There are some things which one had much better 
not think of at all,” returned I, somewhat severely ; 
for I could not approve of the habit into which Pole 
had fallen of drawing long breaths and throwing 
languishing glances at Mrs. Wilkinson. 

“ Don’t ! ” he groaned. “ I wish you wouldn’t ! 
What is the use of going on at a fellow like that, 
when he is trying all he can to run straight ? ” 

I don’t know whether he devoted himself so assid- 
uously to Miss Warde after this because he felt that 
the least he could do was to endeavour to divert the 
poor girl whom he had unintentionally disappointed, 
or because he wished, as he said, to “ run straight,” 
or because Mrs. Wilkinson declined to have anything 
to say to him ; but whatever may have been the 
motive of his conduct, the effect of it was that the 


36 MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 

fair widow and I were left to entertain one another 
throughout the evening. After dinner we went out 
on to the terrace, and, seating ourselves there while 
the sun sank in the west, surveyed that pleasant 
landscape which is associated with the digestive pro- 
cess in the minds of so many hundreds of persons. 
For me it had other associations — a great many 
others. 1 am no longer young ; I have dined at Rich- 
mond I should be sorry to say how often ; and in 
that familiar twilight ghosts from the past began to 
float before me and drift away, like the smoke of the 
cigar which Mrs. Wilkinson had kindly permitted me 
to light. I was in a soft and sentimental mood ; and 
so, I imagine, was she. We had remained silent for 
- some time when she said, in that low, gentle voice of 
hers, which always sounded to me as if it could only 
belong to a well-bred woman — 

“ Colonel Walmisley, I wonder whether you would 
give me a little advice, if I asked you.” 

“ I shall be delighted,” answered I. “ Advice is 
emphatically one of the things which it is more 
blessed to give than to receive. Never in my life 
have I sent any one who has begged me for it empty 
away.” 

I adopted this rather flippant tone because the 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 37 

fact of being in a sentimental mood always puts me 
more than usual upon the alert against surprises. 

I could see that she looked hurt. She turned her 
head away, saying : “ After all, I don’t know that I 
will trouble you. You would not be interested in 
what I was going to ask you about ; it only referred 
to myself.” 

“ Then,” said I, more seriously, “ you may be sure 
that it will interest me very much indeed.” And 
this was no more than the truth. Could she, I won- 
dered be going to consult me as to Pole’s intentions ? 

But it soon appeared that no such delicate ques- 
tion as that was to be laid before me. What Mrs. 
Wilkinson wanted to know was whether I should 
recommend her to take up her residence in London 
permanently or not. She had thought a great deal 
about it, she said, and was quite unable to arrive at 
a decision. “ It has so happened that I have lived 
almost entirely abroad until lately, and perhaps I 
should be happier in some ways if I were to go 
abroad again. Yet — there would be objections to 
that, would there not ? Don’t people often say un- 
kind things about women who live out of their own 
country ? ” 

She turned to me with one of her half-timid, half- 


38 MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 

confiding glances, and I replied: “People say un- 
kind things everywhere and about everyone, Mrs. 
Wilkinson ; hut it doesn’t matter much so long as they 
are not repeated to the person of whom they are said. 
I know one humble individual who won’t be able to 
help saying unkind things of you if you go away 
and leave us. You ought not to have consulted me 
about this matter. How can you expect me to give 
you a disinterested opinion ? ” 

“ I did not expect you to answer me in that way,” 
she said, with more of sadness than reproach in her 
tone. “I thought — perhaps I had no business to 
think so — but I thought you were inclined to be my 
friend, and that if I asked you what it would be best 
for me to do, you would tell me. You have always 
been friendly until now.” 

Certainly, as she spoke these last words, she had 
les larmes dans la voix . I know that this effective 
sound can be produced by a trick which is easily 
learnt, and I also know that when a woman desires 
to make a fool of you, she almost invariably begins 
with a display of helplessness ; but really suspicion 
must have limits, and I do possess a heart — a some- 
what tough and battered one, it may be — still quite 
serviceable and ready to beat with generous emotion 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 39 

upon cause shown. I did not believe that poor little 
Mrs. Wilkinson was trying to impose upon me; 
but in any case it would have been impossible to 
reply to her otherwise than as I did reply. I begged 
her pardon ; I assured her that I was indeed her 
friend, and I added a few pretty phrases, such as I 
take it that any one, circumstanced as I was, would 
have uttered. She was easily conciliated, poor little 
soul. She told me all her doubts and fears, and 
very natural they were. People in London had been 
kind to her ; but then she had heard that people in 
London often were kind to strangers for a time, and 
afterwards dropped them. She did not think she 
would be able to bear being dropped. She confessed 
that she was fond of society, and perhaps she was 
more dependent upon it than others because she was 
so lonely. Other people had their relations to fall 
back upon. 

“ And have you none ? ” I ventured to inquire. 

She shook her head mournfully. “ They are all 
dead. 1 should think no one is more utterly alone 
in the world than I am.” 

“ But at least you have friends,” I urged. “ Miss 
Warde, for instance — I suppose you have known her 
for a long time, have you not ? ” 


40 MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 

Perhaps this question was not in the best pos- 
sible taste, but I never allowed such opportunities 
to slip ; and not the least puzzling thing about Mrs. 
Wilkinson was the perfectly easy and unconscious 
manner in which she avoided giving a direct reply. 

“ Charlotte Warde is a great friend of mine, of 
course,” she answered ; “ but Charlotte will marry 
some day — indeed, I should not wonder if she were 
to marry very soon ; and marriage annuls previous 
friendships, you know. I don’t mean that she will 
drop me, but I shall certainly see less of her.” 

“ And are there no others besides Miss Warde?” 

“ None, I think. I don’t make friends easily, 
though I get on quickly enough with acquaintances ” 
She paused for a moment, and then added, with a 
rather tremulous little laugh, “ Do you know, I think 
you are the only other friend that I have — and I am 
not at all sure that you care to accept my friendship.” 

“ Dear Mrs. Wilkinson,” I exclaimed, “ how can 
you doubt me so ? Pray, never doubt me again ! 
There is nothing in the world that I prize more than 
your friendship and no privilege that I should con- 
sider greater than that of being allowed to serve 
you.” 

I protest that I said this with the most perfect 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 


41 


sincerity. I was carried away by my feelings. I 
had entirely forgotten for the moment that I was 
engaged in an intrigue which had for its aim the 
defeat of another intrigue. So completely, indeed, 
had I forgotten what I was about, that I ended by 
taking her hand, which was resting upon the arm 
of her chair, and raising it to my lips. 

She started and got up at once. “Thank you, 
Colonel Walmisley,” she said, rather hurriedly; “I 
— I am sure you mean what you say. Ought we not 
to be going home now ? ” 

Our drive back to London was not enlivened by 
much dialogue. Probably we all had our own 
thoughts, and in the case of some of us these may 
have been more engrossing than exhilarating. Pole 
looked as solemn as a judge and hardly opened his 
lips the whole time. When we had seen the ladies 
home, and were walking away arm in arm, he began 
to remonstrate with me. 

“ I say, old chap, aren’t you rather overdoing this ? ” 

“ Not in the least,” I replied decisively ; “ you can’t 
overdo a thing of this kind. I have an object before 
me, and I pursue that object. You ought to he 
admiring my thoroughness, instead of perpetually 
grumbling.” And then, as T did not wish to prolong 


42 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 


the discussion, I hailed a passing hansom and said 
“ Good- night.” 

The fact of the matter was that Pole’s warning 
was only too justifiable. I was conscious that I 
was indeed overdoing it — nay, that I had already 
overdone it, and had committed myself to a line of 
conduct of which the possible consequences were 
too painful to contemplate. I suppose a good many 
readers will smile when they hear what it was that 
caused me to spend an almost sleepless night. Well, 
I can’t help it ; they must smile. All I can say is 
that if they had been in my place, the same convic- 
tion would have been forced upon them that was 
forced upon me. 

I have stated before that, in forming my little 
stratagem, I had no thought of inspiring a lady with 
sentiments which I was unable to reciprocate, nor 
any suspicion that so lamentable a result would 
occur. Yet, of course it might occur; and remem- 
bering Mrs. Wilkinson’s agitation on the terrace at 
Richmond, I feared — I greatly feared — that it actu- 
ally had occurred. This was what I thought about 
during the silent watches of the night, and I must 
say that it made me dreadfully unhappy. 

I went to call upon her the next day, and my 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 43 

worst apprehensions were at once confirmed. The 
slight pressure of the hand with which she wel- 
comed me ; her questioning glance ; her somewhat 
forced gaiety; the vibration of her voice — all, all 
combined to tell the same sad tale, and to show me 
beyond the possibility of a doubt that, in trying to 
extricate my friend from an awkward predicament 
I had got into a far more awkward one myself. Far 
more awkward, because I was now convinced that 
Mrs. Wilkinson had never been in love with Pole. 
She would have consented to marry him, perhaps, 
on account of her loneliness; but at the worst it 
was only her pride that would have suffered by his 
desertion of her. Pole must surely have been able 
to see that much for himself ; yet he had felt very 
strongly, and still continued to feel, that, after hav- 
ing paid Mrs. Wilkinson marked attention, he was 
bound in honour to propose to her. And if he was 
bound to take that course, what, in the name of 
gracious goodness, was I bound to do ? “I do not,” 
said a certain pompous Radical politician, speaking 
in the House about this time upon I forget what 
question connected with army matters — “ I do not 
envy the feelings with which the honourable mem- 
ber for Weehampton must recall at night the reiter- 


44 MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON . 

ated misrepresentations of which he has been guilty 
during the day.” 

I was unable to join in the laughter that greeted 
this burst of censure. “ I dare say you don’t,” 
thought I, « and you would envy them still less if 

you only knew what they were ! ” 

I prefer not to dwell upon the truly wretched 
period of three weeks during which I was tossed 
upon the ocean of fate and driven hither and thither 
by baffling winds. Like the unfortunate persons 
described by Byron, “ The magnet of my course was 
gone, or only pointed in vain The shore to which my 
shiver’d sail should never stretch again.” (I allude 
to the quiet shore of celibacy.) Ah, yes ! I knew, 
though I tried not to know, whither I was drifting. 
I couldn’t see my way out of it ; I couldn’t help be- 
coming more and more lover-like in my manner 
towards Mrs. Wilkinson ; I couldn’t help stammering 
and looking guilty when Pole roundly accused me 
of being his rival. To carry on the novel imagery 
with which I began this paragraph, I may say that 
I had given up all attempt at scientific navigation* 
and that probably no man was ever more hopelessly 
out of his reckoning since St Paul’s celebrated Medi- 
terranean cruise. 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 45 

“ Pole,” I said one day to my friend, with dismal 
jocularity, “ can you take an observation ? ” 

“No,” he replied, “I can’t. But I can make an 
observation — and I will ! ” 

“ Pray don’t,” I interrupted. “You needn’t — it’s 
quite unnecessary. I know what you want to say, 
and you are perfectly right. I have been madly, 
criminally rash, and I have come to howling grief. 
But at least it doesn’t lie in your mouth to blame 
me.” 

“ Doesn’t it ? ” said he ; “ I’m not so sure of that.” 
And he walked off, with his hands in his pockets 
and his head bent. 

Well, after all, light dawned upon me at last, and 
I was able to shape a course. Somehow or other, 
in the midst of all my misery, I had not been quite 
so miserable as by rights I ought to have been, 
and this struck me as a singular phenomenon which 
might repay investigation. I sat me down, looked 
things in the face, and said to myself, Why not ? 
What if Mrs. Wilkinson’s husband had been a pork 
butcher, or her father a swindler? What if she 
had had no father at all, to speak of ? She herself 
was charming — I found her more charming every 
day — and my case was not like Pole’s. I am not a 


46 MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 

county magnate ; I have not a pedigree yards long ; 
I am not blessed with a couple of daughters, nor do I 
possess a mother imbued with aristocratic prejudices. 
And then all of a sudden it flashed across me not 
only that I should not mind marrying Mrs. Wilkin- 
son, but that it would distress me beyond measure if 
she married any one else. 

I despair of conveying any notion of the effect 
that this delightful discovery produced upon me. 
I can only compare my sensations to those of a man 
who has dreamt that he was about to be hanged 
and who wakes to find a letter by his bedside in- 
forming him that he has succeeded to a fortune. No 
sooner had I realised what my wishes were than I 
tore off impetuously to give effect to them, and the 
first thing that Mrs. Wilkinson said on seeing me 
was : 

“ How beaming you look ! One would think that 
you had heard the good news already ! ” 

“ What good news ? ” I inquired. 

“ The news of Charlotte Warde’s engagement to 
Mr. Seymour. I am so very glad about it, and they 
are both so happy.” 

“Oh, that!” I answered rather unsympathet- 
ically ; “ I have known for ever so long that that 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 47 

was coming off sooner or later. But I name here 
to say — to ask — to tell you — oh, Mrs. Wilkinson, I 
am sure you must understand what I mean ! Can 
you — will you make me as happy as Miss Warde 
has made Mr. Seymour ? ” 

She did not answer, and on looking up I saw that 
she was pressing her handkerchief tightly against 
her lips and that her features were convulsed by 
some powerful emotion. That was all very well, 
but it gave me rather a shock to discover presently 
that it was laughter, not tears, that she was trying to 
subdue. “Well,” she said quietly, when she could 
control her voice, “ I am glad that is over. I swore 
to myself that you should propose to me before 
the season was at an end, and I have kept my vow.” 

“Mrs. Wilkinson! ” I exclaimed in dismay. 

« Oh, yes,” she said calmly ; “ and perhaps I may 
claim some credit for having accomplished what you 
would have considered a sheer impossibility not 
many weeks ago. I think you will understand now 
that, if I had wished to marry your friend Mr. Pole, 
I could have done so without much difficulty. Do 
you really imagine that I didn’t see through you 
the very first day that you came here ? Do you 
imagine that there were not plenty of people kind 


48 MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 

enough to tell me of the inquiries that you set on 
foot about my parentage and history ? My dear 
Colonel Walmisley, I am willing to believe that 
you stand without a rival in your knowledge of mili- 
tary statistics ; but may I tell you that you don’t 
know a very great deal about women? You had 
much better not try to outwit us in future. You 
see, if I had been what you were so flattering as to 
think me, you would have rued this day to the end 
of your life. Will you, please, tell Mr. Pole that 
he need not think himself called upon to follow your 
noble example ? I quite understand that he would 
feel as if he had done the proper thing after propos- 
ing to me and being refused ; but it will save trouble 
if he will consider that performance as having been 
gone through.” 

T hardly know how I got out of the house. T did 
make some feeble effort to convince Mrs. Wilkinson 
that I was at all events sincere in my professions of 
attachment now, whatever I might have been at an 
earlier stage of our acquaintance ; but I felt that it 
was too much to expect of her that she should 
believe me, and as a matter of fact, she did not 
believe me. 

“ I assure you you are not in love with me,” she 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 49 

said . “ My humble little triumph is that I have made 
you propose to me without being so.” 

I went straight off to Pole and told him exactly 
what had happened. “ This has been a most un- 
fortunate business for me,” I said ; “but there is 
some consolation in the thought that you couldn’t 
have got out of it better if I had been completely 
successful.” 

“ I don’t know whether you call this getting out 
of it well,” returned Pole gloomily, “but I don’t. 
What must she think of me ! I’ll tell you what it 
is, old chap: I don’t doubt that your intentions 
were good, but I wish to Heaven you hadn’t inter- 
fered with me.” 

I suppose he must have forgotten that it was he 
who had asked me to interfere. I made no rejoinder, 
and he went on to say that he had resolved to set 
his family at defiance. He loved Mrs. Wilkinson, 
and he was going to tell her so, be the consequences 
what they might. 

“ Very well,” I returned ; “ go and tell her, then, 
since you can’t be contented to let well alone. She 
may refuse you ; she says she will ; but I wouldn’t 
answer for her. I am sure you know that I speak 

without any personal feeling of bitterness ; but she 
4 


50 MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 

is quite the most perfect adept at deception that I 
ever met in my life.” » 

The next time that I saw Pole he informed me 
briefly that Mrs. Wilkinson had dismissed him. “ I 
don’t want to talk about it,” he said ; “ I’ve had a 
regular facer, and I suppose I have only myself to 
thank for it. All the same, I believe she would 
have accepted me if it hadn’t been for you.” 

Well, that was quite possible; but I could not get 
Pole to see that all had fallen out for the best, and 
the whole affair brought about a coolness between 
us which I am sorry to say has not yet passed away. 
Down in the country the other day I chanced to en- 
counter Miss Warde, who is shortly about to become 
Mrs. Seymour, and of course I could do no less than 
inquire after our common friend Mrs. Wilkinson. 

Miss Warde replied that she was quite well, and 
then looked at me with a peculiar smile. 

“ I see,” said I, “ that you are in possession of 
certain secrets, and I dare say you have a worse 
opinion of me than I deserve. I consider that I 
was more sinned against than sinning; but never 
mind. And now that it is all over, will you tell me 
one thing? What was the mystery about Mrs. 
Wilkinson ? ” 


MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 51 

“ There never was any mystery at all,” she replied ; 
“ it was only you who chose to imagine that there 
must be one. If you had asked my parents, they 
would have told you that her husband was a natu- 
ralised Austrian subject and a distinguished officer, 
and that she herself belongs to a good old family. 
I believe she married General Wilkinson, who was 
much older than herself, to please her father. Na- 
turally, she was not well known in London, having 
lived abroad for so many years ; but there are people 
enough in different parts of England who could have 
proved to you that she was quite entitled by birth 
and position to marry Mr. Pole.” 

“ And pray, why did you not tell me this before?” 
I asked, with some indignation. 

“ Because Mrs. Wilkinson would not let me. She 
was very angry with you, and I think she had some 
reason to be angry. Of course she was angry with 
Mr. Pole too; but I believe she understood all along 
that he was not responsible for your outrageous 
behaviour.” 

I didn’t mind being accused of outrageous be- 
haviour, for in truth I had not seemed to behave 
well ; but I was really sorry on Pole’s account that 
I had been misled, and I said so. 


52 MYSTERIOUS MRS. WILKINSON. 

“ Do not reproach yourself too bitterly,” replied 
Miss Warde, laughing. “ He and Mrs. Wilkinson 
have met again, and I believe there have been ex- 
planations, and I shouldn’t wonder if she were to 
forgive him. Yes, I think she will forgive him ; but 
if you ask me my candid opinion, I doubt whether 
she will ever forgive you ” 






A QUEER BUSINESS. 


I call it a queer business because, on taking an 
impartial and dispassionate review of the events, 
which I am very well able to do, I still consider it 
so. Lady Pontefract and others who pride them- 
selves upon their acuteness may say that the whole 
thing was as clear as daylight from start to finish ; 
but I am not so sure of that. I don’t know that it 
ended exactly as it had always been intended to end ; 
I am by no means convinced that certain persons 
did not find themselves compelled by certain cir- 
cumstances to change their plan of campaign in the 
very thick of the action, so to speak ; and although 
I am perfectly willing to admit that I was to some 
extent taken in — what honest gentleman is not taken 
in when women are pleased to match their wits 
against his ? — I must nevertheless venture to doubt 
whether my original reading of the situation was 


54 


A Q U EE 11 BUSINESS. 


altogether erroneous. However, I will unfold my 
simple tale, and then everybody can form his or her 
judgment upon it. 

It began with Mrs. Somers’s visit to me one fine 
afternoon last September. I had only just got back 
from quarter sessions, and was smoking a quiet cigar 
in my den, when a small pony-carriage, driven by a 
lady, flashed past my windows and pulled up at the 
front door. The bell rang, and presently — for I was 
sitting, as I often do in warm weather, with the 
door open — I heard the colloquy which ensued be- 
tween the strange lady and my butler. 

“ Is Sir Richard North at home ? ” a very pleasant 
and musical voice inquired. 

“ Miss North is out riding, ma’am,” replied that 
idiot Brooks in his most solemn manner and with a 
distinct accent of reproof. 

“ Oh, I am so sorry ! But perhaps Sir Richard is 
in?” 

“ I will inquire, ma’am,” says Brooks more solemnly 
than ever. And then I heard him creaking slowly 
along the passage. 

“A lady who says she wishes to see you, Sir 
Richard,” he announced, as he halted upon the 
threshold 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 55 

“ Then why on earth don’t you show her into the 
drawing-room, Brooks ? What do you mean by leav- 
ing ladies standing in the hall ? ” I asked a little 
sharply, for if there is one thing that irritates me 
more than another it is the impertinent habit that my 
servants have got into of treating me as though I 
could not be trusted within a mile of a petticoat. 
Goodness knows I have annoyances enough of that 
kind to submit to at the hands of one whom my 
amiable and perhaps rather weak temperament has 
converted from the respectful daughter that she 
ought to be into the tyrannical despot that she is. 
It is really intolerable that one should be shepherded 
by one’s butler. 

Brooks withdrew silently ; but, on second 
thoughts, I called him back and said, as I threw my 
cigar out of the window, “ Perhaps you had better 
ask the lady to come in here, not into the drawing- 
room.” 

I had reasons for giving this order, which I will 
explain later on. Of course it sounds rather un- 
ceremonious to invite a strange lady into a room 
impregnated with tobacco smoke ; but all things 
considered, I really couldn’t help it ; and my visitor, 
who was announced as u Mrs Somers,” cut short my 


56 


A QUEER BUSINESS . 


apologies in a most charming and friendly manner. 
In fact, she actually forced me to light another 
cigar, declaring that she would go away without 
stating her business unless I did so. 

“ For,” said she, “ I need hardly tell you that I 
have called upon a matter of business. It is most 
irregular, I know ; I ought to have waited until 
Miss North became aware of my existence and left 
cards — that is, if I may venture to assume that she 
would have done so eventually ; but ” 

“ My dear Mrs. Somers,” I interrupted, “ it is we 
who ought to apologise to you for having been so 
inexcusably remiss. My daughter and I were quite 
aware that you had taken Southbank Cottage, and 
we were congratulating ourselves upon the circum- 
stance, and were quite looking forward to the pleasure 
of making your acquaintance ; but somehow or other 
ohe’s days are so filled up, even down here in the 
depths of the country.” 

She murmured something about “ so very kind of 
you.” “ But,” she continued, “ delighted as I shall be 
to know Miss North, I have taken this liberty because 
I was so very anxious to see you, Sir Richard, and 
to ask a great favour of you. You have an only 
daughter, and perhaps that may enable you to 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 


57 


sympathise a little with the mother of an only son. 
And I think you must have knoAvn my poor husband. 
Was he not in the Guards with you ? ” 

Well, I couldn’t say that I remembered him. It 
is a considerable number of years since I retired 
from the Guards, and one doesn’t necessarily know 
every officer in every regiment of that brigade. 
However I didn’t want to chill her — for she was 
really a very pretty wqman, and her manner was 
most agreeable— so I replied hastily, “Oh, dear me, 
yes ; Somers, to be sure! Poor fellow! Yes, yes.” 
Which I flatter myself, was polite, without being 
precisely untruthful. 

Thus encouraged, she proceeded to state what 
she wanted of me. She had, it appeared, a son who 
had failed in his preliminary examination for the 
army, as why shouldn’t he? Many excellent men 
do fail in those senseless and abominable examina- 
tions. However, he had been got into a West India 
regiment, and had served two years with it, and 
had now come home to be transferred, as she hoped, 
to the cavalry. But the difficulty was this. She 
was dreadfully afraid that the authorities meant 
gazetting him to the 99th Dragoon Guards, who 
were at that time stationed in India, whereas she 


58 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 


had set her heart, and he had set his heart, upon 
his joining the 26th Lancers. Now the 26th Lan- 
cers, as it happened, were then quartered at Tor- 
chester, which is within a drive of our neighbour- 
hood ; so that if her ambition and her son’s could 
be gratified, it would, as she said, be “ almost too 
delightful.” 

Why, in a matter requiring such delicate hand- 
ling and such powerful interest as this, did she ap- 
ply for assistance to me, of all men in the world — a 
simple country squire, with no influence, or at all 
events none worth mentioning, in high places ? My 
tongue did not put this question, but possibly my 
eyes did ; for she replied : 

“ Oh, Sir Richard, I’m quite sure you can manage 
it, if you will. Everybody knows how popular you 
are and — and respected ” (I am afraid she did hesi- 
tate a second before bringing out this last epithet) 
“and a word or two from you at the War Office 
or the Horse Guards would go such a very long 
wayJ ” 

Now I know perfectly well that every man who 
reads this will smile and think that he himself 
would have been rather displeased than otherwise 
by such undisguised flattery; but I know quite 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 59 

equally well that he wouldn’t have been in the least 
displeased. It is not in human nature to dislike 
flattery ; and besides, there was a germ of truth in 
what Mrs. Somers asserted. I don’t say that there 
was more than a germ ; but a germ there was, and I 
consider that I was quite justified in telling her that 
if the thing could be done I could do it. 

So she thanked me warmly, and then I expressed 
the surprise, almost amounting to incredulity, that 
I felt at her having a grown-up son, and she re- 
sponded by a very neat tu quoque , and I was think- 
ing about offering her a cup of tea, when she 
jumped up and said she really mustn’t keep her 
poor little pony standing any longer. 

I did not press her to stay quite as urgently as 
I might have done if I had not been in momentary 
expectation of seeing Alma return from her ride. 
I mentioned just now that I am the humble slave 
of my daughter Alma. Of course I ought never to 
have allowed myself to become so ; but there it is. 
She established her authority over me when she 
was still quite a child, and a young lady of nineteen 
who has had her head from childhood is, as most 
people will admit, no longer amenable to discipline 
or even control. 


60 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 


Not that Alma’s yoke has ever weighed very 
heavily upon me, save at one point ; but upon that 
one point she has from the first made it clear that 
she will stand no trifling, and she has been as 
obstinate and unreasonable about it as women in- 
variably are when they take some absurd notion 
into their heads. No apprehension could possibly 
have been more absurd or groundless than that of 
my giving my daughter a stepmother. I am far too 
appreciative of the society of ladies generally to con- 
template such a step ; added to which, I have no 
fancy for living in a hornet’s nest. Alma, however 
says that people very often do things that they have 
never contemplated, and declares that I am yielding 
and easily talked over — which may be true ; she 
ought to know. But when she goes on to aver that 
I am still young, that I am handsome in person, that 
I am notoriously well off, and that consequently 
every unmarried woman in the county is prepared 
to set her cap at me, she is talking the purest non- 
sense. True, I am not much more than forty years 
of age ; but any good looks that I may once have 
possessed have, as I need hardly say, faded long ago, 
like the last rose of summer ; and as for my being 
well off — is it likely that any owner of land can be 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 


61 


well off in these hard times ? I learnt many years 
back, though, that it is a waste of breath to talk com- 
mon sense to the sex which we only designate as 
“ fair ? ’ because it would be so rude to employ the op- 
posite term. One can but bow to their arbitrary 
behests and endeavour to circumvent them ; and that 
is not the easiest thing in the world to do, and I am 
a singularly unlucky man. Of course Alma came 
cantering up the avenue just as Mrs. Somers was 
driving down it, and of course I had to submit to a 
severe catechising immediately afterwards. 

“ Business ! ” says Alma, with a toss of her pretty 
little golden-haired head ; “ I really don’t understand 
what business any lady — and a total stranger too — 
could have in your study.” ( How like that wretch 
Brooks to have told her that he had shown Mrs. 
Somers into my study ! ) 

“ My dear,” I replied mildly, “ it appears possible 
that there may be still just a few things in the world 
which you don’t understand.” 

The fact is that when I vetoed the drawing-room 
1 had quite forgotten that the pony-chaise was en 
evidence at the door ; so simple-minded am I and 
incapable of deceiving the veriest infant. 

Alma rejoined that she might be very foolish and 


62 A QUEER BUSINESS. 

very inexperienced, but that she did think she had 
intelligence enough to understand what a young 
an d — well, some people might call her a rather 
good-looking widow, meant by forcing her way into 
the house of a neighbour to whom she had not even 
been introduced. 

I humbly pointed out that this assertion of my 
daughter’s was a direct contradiction of her previous 
one ; but she said that was mere quibbling ; so it 
seemed best, upon the whole, to tell her the truth, 
though I had little hope that she would believe it. 

By good luck, it chanced that she herself was in 
possession of a fact which to some extent vindicated 
my veracity. “Mrs. Somers really has a son,” she 
remarked meditatively ; “ I met him last month 
when I was staying with the Whartons. I never 
thought until now of his being any relation of the 
Mrs. Somers at Southbank Cottage ; but of course 
it must be the same, for I remember his telling me 
that he had been in a West India regiment and was 
in hopes of getting into the cavalry shortly.” 

“ In that case,” I observed, “ you will perhaps 
now admit that Mrs. Somers might have come to see 
me upon business.” 

Alma shook her head and looked doubtful. “ That 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 63 

only shows,” she replied, “ that Mrs. Somers had an 
excuse for coming to see you ; she can’t have sup- 
posed that you had any power to transfer her son 
from one regiment into another.” 

It is an old story that no man is a prophet in his 
own country, nor any hero heroic to his valet. If 
I have some trifling political and social influence, 
my daughter would naturally be the last person to 
give me credit for anything of the sort ; nor did I 
attempt to insist upon it. I simply said : “ A widow 
and an orphan have appealed to me for help ; that, 
I think, is enough. I shall certainly do what little 
I can to be of use to them, and you will oblige me, 
Alma, if you will call at Southbank Cottage some 
day soon.” 

And I am sorry to say that the reply of that im- 
pertinent girl was : “ If the widow had had a snub 
nose and grey hair she would have appealed in vain. 
But she shall be duly called upon. She evidently 
doesn’t mean to be ignored, and as she will probably 
come here again to discuss business before long, I 
had better be upon speaking terms with her I 
suppose.” 

I had to go up to London the next day to buy 
some cartridges, as well as to attend to other matters 


64 


A QUEER BUSINESS . 


of more or less importance. I mentioned this to 
Alma at breakfast, and she smiled in a demure and 
rather provoking way which is habitual to her, but 
abstained from any verbal comment. Being in town, 
I naturally looked up some official friends of mine 
to see whether anything could be done for young 
Somers, and I was agreeably surprised to find that 
no fuss was likely to be made about the request 
which I had to make. There was, it seemed, a 
vacancy in the 26th Lancers, to which corps, so far 
as I could make out, Mr. Somers would have been 
gazetted without my intervention ; but I confess 
that I did not avow this in so many words to his 
mother, at whose house I stopped on my way home 
from the station, and who kindly refreshed me with 
a cup of tea. I did, however, do my best to con- 
vince her that she was far too profuse in her ex- 
pressions of gratitude. How could I help it if she 
would insist upon calling me her benefactor and wish- 
ing with clasped hands and tears in her eyes (upon my 
honour and conscience there were tears in her eyes) 
that she could do anything, anything to show how 
thankful she was to me for my great kindness. 

I am a very tender-hearted man, and it grieves me 
beyond measure to see a lady in tears. To relieve 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 


65 


the strain of the situation and give a lighter tone to 
our intercourse, I responded in my best manner: 
“ Mrs. Somers, I shall take you at your word and ask 
a favour of you at once. What day will you come 
and lunch with us ? ” 

In the course of my studies of feminine character, 
which have been patiently pursued during a number 
of years, I have often had occasion to notice that 
there is nothing which ladies dislike quite so much 
as being taken at their word. Mrs. Somers looked 
down at her tea-cup and smiled and hesitated, and 
when at last she opened her lips it was to decline my 
modest invitation. I forget whether I have men- 
tioned that she had a pair of very pretty soft brown 
eyes. She raised them to mine now with a pleading 
expression which was extremely effective, and, 
“ Don’t think me too punctilious, Sir Richard,” said 
she ; “ but, you see, Miss North hasn’t called here yet, 
and — and don’t you think it would perhaps be wiser 
for me to wait until she does ? ” 

I may have looked a little embarrassed, for mine 
is a bashful temperament. At any rate, I could not 
think of an appropriate reply, and she immediately 
resumed ; “ I see you agree with me, and you won’t 
misunderstand my refusal. B.ut if you would be 

5 


66 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 


good enough to extend your hospitality to my son, 
that would be a different thing. George is coming 
down to-night to stay for a time with me, and he 
ought to call upon you — indeed, he must call upon 
you — to thank you for what you have so generously 
done for him.” 

So it was agreed that George should lunch with 
us on the next day but one, and when I left Mrs. 
Somers’s cottage I felt that I had laid the founda- 
tion of one of those platonic friendships which are 
the happiness and consolation of middle age, and 
which only the wilfully blind, the suspicious and the 
ill-natured persist in misinterpreting. 

“ What sort of a fellow is this young Somers ?” I 
inquired casually of Alma shortly before the hour 
at which we had been given to understand that we 
might look for the honour of welcoming him ; and I 
was not sorry to see her shrug her shoulders and 
hear her reply that he was just like the general run 
of subalterns. “ A grown-up Sandhurst boy, who 
talks a great deal about cricket and shooting and 
riding, and very little about anything else,” she said. 

This slightly contemptuous summing up of him 
was, I say, rather a relief to me ; for when one has 
an only child, and when that child is a daughter, one 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 


67 


naturally doesn’t care to be too promiscuous in one’s 
invitations to impecunious youths. Besides, I had 
other ideas for Alma’s future happiness — ideas which 
I had not been such a fool as to arouse opposition by 
communicating to her, but which I had good hope 
would be brought to a satisfactory realisation in due 
course of time. 

George Somers, when he arrived, proved to be very 
much what Alma had pithily described him as being. 
She might have added with truth that he was a 
gentleman, that his manners were straightforward 
and unaffected and that he had such comeliness of 
person as belongs to youth, health and strength. He 
did not thank me with quite as much fervour as his 
mother had displayed ; but he said it was “ awfully 
good ” of me to have taken such a lot of trouble on 
his behalf, and as I had not really taken any trouble 
at all, that acknowledgment seemed to meet the' re- 
quirements of the case. I was very much taken with 
the lad, and listened to his simple talk during lunch- 
eon with a great deal of pleasure. Also I was glad to 
notice that he hit it off pretty well with Alma, 
though he was evidently a little afraid of her — in 
which respect he did not stand alone. Alma is some- 
what given to snubbing young men, not to speak of 


68 A QUEER BUSINESS. 

old ones. She apparently thinks that we all want 
taking down a peg and that it is her mission in life 
to render us this service-. As she is pretty (indeed, 
at the age of three- and-f or ty I suppose there is no 
harm in my saying that our family is somewhat 
notorious for beauty;, the generality of men do not 
bear malice against her, but submit more in sorrow 
than in anger, to her occasional sharp speeches. 
However, she was quite kind and civil to young 
Somers, and told him that she hoped he would stay 
the afternoon if he had nothing better to do, as she 
expected some people to come and play lawn tennis. 

Pending the arrival of the usual contingent in 
white and striped flannels, I gave him a cigar and 
led him off to the stables, where we had a little talk 
which confirmed the good opinion that I had already 
formed of him. He was very keen about soldiering, 
he told me, and had a modest hope that, if the fates 
were propitious, he might some day distinguish 
himself in his calling. 

“ Of course,” said he, “ it isn’t a paying trade ; but 
one can’t have everything, and, as I tell my mother, 
I shouldn’t have made a fortune at anything else.” 

“What,” I inquired, “would your mother have 
liked you to do ? ” 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 


69 


At this he laughed and blushed a little, and 
answered, “ Oh, I believe she admits that I’m not fit 
for any other profession ; only she is strongly im- 
pressed with the idea that I ought to pick up coin 
somehow, and there’s only one way in which I can 
do that, you know. The fact is, I don’t at all agree 
with her. I should hate to marry for money, and I 
think a man who does that sort of thing is a des- 
picable kind of creature, don’t you ? If ever I find 
myself in danger of falling in love with an heiress I 
shall take to my heels like a shot.” 

These were highly creditable sentiments ; but- 1 
confess that I was a little amused by them, and I 
represented to my young friend that exaggeration is 
always to be deprecated. My own views as to matri- 
mony are very much those of Tennyson’s North- 
country farmer. I do not approve of fortune hunt- 
ing ; but if I had a son, I should certainly prefer to 
see him consorting with the wealthy than with the 
penniless, and I said to young Somers that one really 
need not be so thin-skinned as to run away from 
attractive heiresses out of fear of slanderous tongues. 
Such conduct, I added, might under certain easily 
imaginable circumstances be very hard upon the 
poor heiress. 


70 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 


He agreed quite gravely that that was true enough, 
and then we fell to examining the horses, which 
gave him an opportunity of displaying no little 
knowledge and discrimination. 

After that day we saw a good deal of George 
Somers. During the month of September we had 
rather a large party of friends in the house for the 
shooting, and he came out with us and proved him- 
self a very fair shot and achieved popularity among 
the men as well as among the ladies. Alma was 
graciously pleased to approve of him. She told me 
that there was a good deal more in Mr. Somers than 
she had at first supposed, and he was always sure of 
a welcome from her. But there was no getting her 
to extend an equal measure of friendliness to his 
mother, upon whom she called by my desire, but 
whom she chose to treat with a distant civility of 
which I was quite ashamed. I did what I could to 
make amends for my daughter’s frigidity; but I 
knew that Mrs. Somers must have noticed it, and I 
was very much afraid that she might guess to what 
it was due — which placed me in a more or less 
ridiculous position. 

My old friend Lady Pontefract, who is a near 
neighbour of ours, laughed at me when I complained 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 


71 


to her one day — not for the first time, perhaps — 
of the difficulty that I found in showing hospitality 
to any lady who was not either provided with a 
husband or well stricken in years. “ You have only 
yourself to blame, Sir Richard,” said she. ‘‘Every- 
body knows what a flirt you are, and I quite agree 
with Alma that you require close and careful watch- 
ing. If you want to he free to carry on your flirta- 
tions, the best thing you can do is to get her 
married as soon as possible.” 

I hope I need not say that this was only a harm- 
less little joke. I am not such a goose as to think 
of flirting with anybody at my time of life, and if I 
do enjoy being upon terms of intimacy with ladies 
there is nothing discreditable in that, I trust. But 
Lady Pontefract’s allusion to Alma’s possible mar- 
riage enabled me introduce a subject upon which I 
had long wished to speak to my friend and neigh- 
bour. Her son, young Lord Pontefract, was, as I 
knew, coming home shortly, after an absence of 
several years, during which he had visited the utter- 
most ends of the earth, as the custom of young men 
is in these days, and it was natural to suppose that 
his next step would be to take to himself a wife. 
Now I thought it would be no bad thing if his choice 


72 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 


should fall upon my daughter, and if she, on her 
side, should take a liking to him. Lord Pontefract 
is not a rich man ; hut he is the head of a fine old 
family, and his estates adjoin those which Alma 
must sooner or later inherit. Of his personal char- 
acter I did not know much, because he had been so 
little at home since his boyhood ; but I remembered 
that Alma and he had been rather friends when she 
was a small child and when he used to come over to 
see us during his holidays ; so that a renewal of 
their friendship seemed probable enough. 

I mentioned my hopes to Lady Pontefract, who 
said that they quite accorded with her own, add- 
ing, however, that, so far as Alma’s inheritance of 
my property was concerned, there could be no sort 
of certainty about that. 

“We shall always he at the mercy of any Mrs. 
Somers who may chance to turn up,” she declared ; 
“ so you see, my dear Sir Richard, if I second you 
in your scheme, it won’t he from any mercenary 
motive.” 

I was not altogether pleased with this speech. 
Certainly I can’t afford to make Alma an immediate 
allowance of five thousand a year or anything of 
that kind; still I consider her a decidedly good 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 


73 


match for anybody, and I should have been very 
much surprised to hear that Pontefract had a pros- 
pect of doing better. But what was far more 
absurd and far more surprising than Lady Ponte- 
fract’s hint that I might marry again was a warning 
which she thought fit to address to me when I rose 
to take my leave. After informing me that she in- 
tended giving a large ball to celebrate her son’s 
return, and that she hoped all our party would be 
present at it, she went on to say : 

“ Now, Sir Richard, you mustn’t be offended with 
me if I implore you not to worry dear Alma about 
our project. Girls are apt to turn obstinate when 
one tries to drive them, and though I am sure you 
mean to be the kindest father in the world, you 
are just a little bit of a domestic tyrant, you know.” 

Of all the ridiculous things that have ever been 
said to me in my life I do think that that was far 
and away the most ridiculous. I, of all people, a 
domestic tyrant ! I, who hardly dare to call my 
soul my own ! My breath was so completely taken 
away that I went off without a word of reply and 
chewed the cud of my amazement as I rode home- 
wards. 

But ludicrously false as Lady Pontefract’s pre- 


74 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 


mises were, her deductions were doubtless accurate 
enough, so far as they condemned the system of 
domestic tyranny in the abstract ; and although that 
form of it under which I groaned may not have 
rendered me obstinate (for indeed there is no obsti- 
nacy in me), it did, I freely own, exercise a deleterious 
influence upon my moral character, driving me to 
little acts of deception which I should otherwise 
have scorned. Take the case of Mrs. Somers, for 
example. I could not urge her to come up often and 
see us, because I knew that, if she did, my daughter 
would show her the cold shoulder. On the other 
hand, I did not feel disposed to abandon what was 
fast ripening into a warm friendship between this 
charming and sympathetic woman and myself. 
What was the consequence ? Why, simply that I 
took to paying her quasi -clandestine visits, and that 
while her son was playing lawn tennis or billiards, 
or otherwise amusing himself at my house, I not un- 
frequently slipped down to Southbank Cottage for 
a cup of tea. Nothing could have been more inno- 
cent than these visits of mine ; but I confess that it 
was a dangerous habit to fall into, and it had a 
compromising appearance, and if Alma had heard 
of it I should have got into sad trouble. 


75 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 


I was very glad when Alma of her own accord 
suggested that Mrs. Somers should be asked to din- 
ner. Alma hates giving dinner-parties, and so, for 
the matter of that, do I ; but one must not shirk 
one’s duties, and we have to entertain the neigh- 
bourhood once a fortnight, on an average. I was, I 
say, very glad when Mrs. Somers was invited to 
join one of these somewhat dreary gatherings, and 
still more glad when she accepted our invitation ; 
for I had not felt sure that she would do so. Moreover, 
the evening, when it came, was marked by an episode 
which afforded me unexpected relief and gratifica- 
tion. Amongst our guests was a certain Colonel 
Sinclair, who lives near us, and who is a very good 
fellow, though a little heavy, I always think. Now, 
although Mrs. Somers had never mentioned his 
name to me, it appeared that he was an intimate 
friend of hers, and he had not been ten minutes in 
the room before everybody possessed of eyes could 
see that he would be very glad to be something more 
than an intimate friend. Sinclair is a tall, thin man 
who is very solemn and serious about everything. I 
was greatly diverted by the undisguised solemnity 
and seriousness of his attentions to Mrs. Somers, 
who for her part was a little vexed by them, I fan- 


76 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 


cied. I was sorry that she should be bored in that 
way ; yet I could not help rejoicing in a state of 
things so well adapted to quiet the suspicions and 
soothe the animosity of my ever- watchful daughter. 
That it had this desirable result I was made aware 
in the drawing-room after dinner, while Mrs. Somers 
was kindly singing to us, and while Sinclair, who 
knows about as much of music as he does of Chinese, 
was standing behind her and turning over the leaves 
for her at the wrong moment. 

“ Poor papa ! ” whispered Alma compassionately 
in my ear, “ I’m afraid you are quite cut out.” 

“ My dear,” I replied, “ I am delighted to hear 
you say so. May they be happy ! Nothing would 
give me greater pleasure than to dance at their 
wedding.” 

At the same time, I did not think it very likely 
that an opportunity would be given me of thus dis- 
porting myself. Later in the evening I took occa- 
sion to speak to Sinclair of Mrs. Somers in terms of 
warm eulogy, but for some reason or other he did 
not take my remarks in very good part. Foolish 
though it may seem, 1 do believe that he was jealous 
of me, and, to be sure, he must be quite as old a 
man as I am. 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 


77 


And now I have to record something which I 
cannot reflect upon without becoming extremely hot 
and uncomfortable, so that I almost expect to see 
the paper turn pink under my pen as I write. Yet, 
what can I do ? I must tell the truth if I am to tell 
this story at all ; and the truth is that while I was 
helping Mrs. Somers to put on her wraps in the 
library, she behaved after a fashion which, for the 
first time in the course of our aquaintanceship in- 
spired me with feelings of grave alarm. 

Said she, in very soft and gentle accents, “ Are 
you angry with me, Sir Richard ? ” 

“ My dear Mrs. Somers,” I returned, “ do I look 
angry ? And why, in the name of wonder, should I 
be ? You have honoured and charmed us with your 
company this evening, you have sung divinely for 
us ” 

“ Yes, yes,” she interrupted; “but I am afraid you 
are not pleased with me, all the same, and it makes 
me very unhappy to think that I may have dis- 
pleased you. Do you not understand that one can’t 
always do what one wishes or talk to the people 
whom one would prefer to be talking to ? ” 

I wonder what response most elderly gentlemen 
would have made to an appeal of that kind. What 


78 A QUEER BUSINESS. 

I said was: “Dear Mrs. Somers, I understand 
perfectly. We all have to take our turn of the social 
treadmill upon occasion, and to display amiability 
and — and prudence. Besides, you and I have other 
opportunities of exchanging ideas, have we not ? ” 

So she thanked me and pressed my hand and 
went away; and I candidly avow that I was not 
sorry to have escaped safely from that little inter- 
view. 

It is a great pity that so few people are capable of 
platonic friendship, or, to use what I believe is the 
more correct phrase, of platonic love. It has always 
seemed to me utterly inconsequent to assume that 
attachments of this elevating a^d delightful descrip- 
tion must needs lead to matrimony, which is a com- 
monplace, hard- fact sort of business, with very little 
that is romantic about it ; still, the unfortunate fact 
is that many women do take that erroneous view, 
and I hope every one who reads this will appreciate 
the delicacy which prompted me to give Southbank 
Cottage a wide berth for some days after the colloquy 
recorded above. 

It was the more easy for me to do so because I 
was really a good deal occupied in entertaining 
shooting-parties, one of which Lord Pontefract, who 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 


79 


had just returned home, was pleased to grace with 
his presence. I must say that I was somewhat dis- 
appointed in Pontefract’s personal appearance. He 
bore a striking resemblance to his father, who, I 
remember, was a very ugly man, with a sharp nose 
and squeezed-up eyes, like a fox terrier. To have had 
an ill-favoured father is one’s misfortune, not one’s 
fault ; but I am not sure that having had an ill-man- 
nered father is a sufficient excuse for being a boor, 
and it would be idle to deny that the present Lord 
Pontefract is a boor. While we were out shooting, 
he made some remarks to me about the paucity of 
birds which were not at all to my liking ; also he 
spoke roughly to the keeper, who, being a short- 
tempered man, retorted with more candour than 
respect. The simple truth is that, both as regards 
partridge-shooting and pheasant shooting, there can 
be no sort of comparison between my property, 
which has been carefully preserved for years, and 
his, which has been totally neglected ; and very 
sure was I (though I didn’t say so) that if he had 
been upon his own domain that day, he would have 
gone home with an empty bag, instead of bringing 
down ten brace, which, I think, was pretty good con- 
sidering the number of easy shots that he missed. 


go A QUEER BUSINESS. 

However, a man may be a poor shot, an uncom- 
panionable fellow, and have a confoundedly ugly face 
to boot, without being necessarily devoid of those 
sterling qualities which, after all, are what one chiefly 
looks for and prizes in a son-in-law. This was what 
I endeavoured to bear in mind all day, and I believe 
that I behaved as a courteous host ought to do, not- 
withstanding some strong provocation ; for much as 
I hate to praise myself, I think I may fairly claim to 
be somewhat unusually patient and amiable by 
nature. George Somers, it may be, was less richly 
dowered, or, perhaps, being still so young a man, he 
had not learnt the lesson of self-control. At any rate, 
he did not hit it off at all with Pontefract, and they 
were very nearly coming to high words more than 
once before the light began to fade and it was agreed 
that we should bend our steps homewards and have 
a cup of tea with the ladies. 

As we drew near the house, Alma came out to 
meet us and inquire what sport we had had. Alma 
is nothing if not capricious. I suppose she can’t 
have had any idea that I wished her to be civil to 
Lord Pontefract, or she never would have acted as 
she did and joined him, utterly ignoring the rest of 
us. But, of course, I was very pleased to see her 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 


81 


single him out in that marked way, and I made the 
other men wheel round and look at the sunset, so as 
to give this couple a few yards’ start. Then, alas ! 
occurred one of those unhappy incidents against 
which the utmost care cannot provide, and which I 
will venture to say that no man living could have 
foreseen. Alma, who has many pets, had lately be- 
come something of a pigeon-fancier, and it so hap- 
pened that a number of these birds rose above the 
stable-yard while we were all trooping up the drive. 

“ What do you bet I don’t kill a brace with two 
shots?” calls out that egregious ass Pontefract, 
raising his gun to his shoulder. 

Alma sharply ordered him not to fire; George 
Somers sprang forward and addressed him in lan- 
guage which the exigency of the occasion might, 
perhaps, be held to excuse ; but he paid no heed to 
either of them, and loosed off both barrels in quick 
succession. He missed with his first, but most un- 
luckily his second proved more effective, and my 
daughter’s stock of fantails, or blue rocks, or what- 
ever they may have been (I know nothing about the 
creatures myself), was reduced by one. 

After what I had seen of Pontefract’s performances 
6 


82 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 


during the day, I would have laid almost any odds 
on the bird; but his guardian angel or the deuce 
must have intervened, and I don’t know when in my 
life I have been more vexed than when I saw Alma’s 
flashing eyes fixed upon that booby’s face. It was 
just the sort of offence which she was quite sure 
never to forgive. If I had not felt convinced of 
that at the first moment, I should have become 
so when I heard her cut short his half-laughing 
apologies with a chilling compliment upon his skill 
as a marksman. To be so cool she must have been 
very angry indeed, and I do not deny that she had 
some right to be angry. 

Well, we went indoors And had our tea ; very soon 
after which Pontefract got up and wished us good 
evening. Then the young people began to discuss 
him among themselves ; and as they had nothing 
pleasant to say about him, and the moment did not 
seem precisely a favourable one for undertaking his 
defence, I silently withdrew. My intention was to 
smoke a quiet cigar in the garden ; but the evening 
was a little chilly, and I had to walk fast to keep 
myself warm; and so, somehow or other, I found 
myself at Southbank Cottage long before my cigar 
was smoked out. 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 


83 


The craving for sympathy which had led me to 
turn my steps unconsciously in that direction would 
not suffer me to retrace them ; so I rang the bell and 
was presently shown into the presence of Mrs. 
Somers, who remarked that she had been wondering 
what had become of me. I explained that my time 
had not been my own tor the last few days, and 
then — being gently led on to do so — I told her the 
whole story of my project, and of the provoking 
check which it had received. 

She did not seem to feel for me as much as I had 
anticipated that she would. She said it was very 
tiresome, no doubt, to have the success of one’s 
scheme compromised in that way at the outset ; but 
didn’t I think that, after all, it might be a matter 
for congratulation if Lord Pontefract had displayed 
himself in his true colours before my daughter had 
had time to become attached to him ? 

I thought no such thing, and I am afraid that, in 
my natural irritation, I began my rejoinder by 
ejaculating “ Fiddlesticks ! ” A foolish young fellow 
fires at a pigeon, which he cannot suspect of being 
a pet — for what reasonable being would make a pet 
of a pigeon ? — and an equally foolish young woman 
immediately sets him down as a sort of murderer. 


84 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 


It is ridiculous to talk about a mischance of that 
kind causing a man to show himself in his true col- 
ours. The whole point of the thing is that it causes 
him to show himself in falsely dark colours. 

But Mrs. Somers, when I had thus delivered my- 
self, pursed up her lips and tapped her chin pen- 
sively with the fire screen which she was holding, and 
only murmured, “ H’m ! ” It' was evident that she 
was not able either to sympathise with or to advise 
me, so I changed the subject. I asked her whether 
she was going to Lady Pontefract’s ball, and she 
said she was. 

“ Only because George insists upon it, though. My 
dancing days are over, alas ! Yours, I presume, are 
not?” 

I assured her that I should as soon think of stand- 
ing on my head in the middle of the ball-room as of 
asking any one to join me in the deux- temps waltz 
which was in fashion fifteen or twenty years ago, 
and she rejoined, with a very pleasant smile, “Then, 
perhaps, I may hope that you will sit out a few 
dances with me, and we can watch the young ones 
together. I don’t know that looking on is very good 
fun, but it is the only form of fun that is left to an 
old woman like me.” 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 85 

Well, I said what nobody, without manifest dis- 
courtesy, could have refrained from saying in reply. 
Possibly I may have overstepped the limits of pru- 
dence just a little bit ; it is so difficult to keep those 
limits always in view ! But I don’t mind admitting 
that, as I walked home in the twilight, I said to my- 
self : “ Now, my dear boy, you must be more careful, 
you really must ! If you don’t look out what you 
are about, you will be getting into a mess again, as 
you have done so many times before. And then you 
will lay the blame upon circumstances, instead of 
blaming your own folly, as you ought.” 

I was a little hard upon myself in saying this, but 
then I am given to being hard upon myself. Perhaps 
it is an error on the right side. 

One comfort was that Alma ceased to be afraid of 
Mrs. Somers at the very moment when I began to 
entertain some not unjustifiable apprehensions. 
Oddly enough, she had taken up the idea that Sin- 
clair was a favoured suitor for the lady’s hand, and, 
of course*, it was not for me to point out to her what 
very slight evidence could be adduced in support of 
her conjecture. However, my supposed love-affairs 
and Sinclair’s were of little enough consequence ; 
what was really important was to ascertain how 


86 A QUEER BUSINESS. 

Alma’s were progressing, and this was just what I 
couldn’t make out at all. 

So far as Pontefract was concerned, the prospect 
was distinctly encouraging. He called twice be- 
tween the day when he had shot the pigeon and the 
day of his mother’s ball. On both occasions he was 
left alone with Alma for some little time, and while 
I was in the room she treated him with more civility 
than she is accustomed to show to people whom she 
dislikes or is affronted with. Yet I did not feel 
sure about her or at all easy in my mind. Alma has 
a propensity for sarcasm, inherited, I suppose, from 
her poor mother’s family — there is nothing of the 
sort about me — and it distressed me to notice that 
she indulged this dangerous tendency of hers more 
than once during her intercourse with Pontefract. 
To be sure, he didn’t detect it, and consequently 
was not disturbed by it, but it struck me as a bad 
sign. I took it into my head, I don’t know why, 
that he meant to propose at the ball, and on the 
afternoon preceding it I grew so fidgetty and 
nervous that I could not resist opening the subject 
to my daughter, though I well knew that it was a 
hazardous experiment to make. She was out until 
quite late, so that 1 had not time to approach the 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 


87 


matter with all the circumspection that I could have 
desired ; but, at any rate, I made my meaning and 
wishes clear, and so, I regret to add, did she. 

“Lord Pontefract,” Alma said concisely, “is a 
stupid, brutal savage. I would rather marry a red 
Indian, and far, far rather remain an old maid to 
the end of my days.” 

Now, I appeal to any fair-minded person— is that 
the sort of language to address to your father? 
Especially when he has done, and is doing, all that 
he possibly can to insure your happiness, present and 
future. To see a woman in tears is to me one of 
the saddest and most upsetting of spectacles. I 
would do almost anything to avoid it; yet there 
seem to be circumstances under which a father 
can’t very well help making his daughter cry. I 
will not dwell further upon a painful scene. Suf- 
fice it to say that Alma and I had a quarrel, for 
which I would willingly admit myself in some 
measure to blame, were not such an admission too 
palpably nonsensical. We dined without exchang- 
ing a word, and drove off to the ball together in 
dignified sulks. I had, perhaps, some right to be 
sulky, since it was plain that I was not to have my 
own way ; but why she should have sulked I am at 


88 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 


a loss to imagine. She says she didn’t ; she says 
she was only alarmed because of my violence ; but 
really, that will not do ! 

I was so disheartened and dejected when we 
reached our destination that I went straight to Mrs. 
Somers to be comforted ; and if I had had some 
reason to complain of lack of sympathy on her part 
before, I could bring no such charge against her now. 
She led me into a little secluded room and was most 
kind and consoling. I think we must have been 
talking nearly half-an-hour before that old horrid 
dread crept over me again, and I began to suspect 
that she was a little too kind. W e were sitting hand 
in hand at the moment. It is an attitude which is 
frequently adopted by intimate friends, and I see no 
sort of harm in it myself ; only I am not sure that 
one ought to keep on squeezing one’s friend’s hand 
every two or three minutes. I was just thinking 
that I had better regain possession of mine upon the 
pretext of wanting to blow my nose, when she made 
my blood run cold by whispering in insinuating 
accents, “ Sir Richard, can you imagine a man being 
so modest, so foolishly modest, that he does not dare 
to ask for what he wants ? ” 

There appeared to be no shadow of doubt but that 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 


89 


she was alluding to me. Modest, foolishly modest — 
it would he impossible to sum up my character more 
accurately hi three words. Nevertheless, I am not 
in the habit of carrying modesty to the criminal pitch 
of asking for what I don’t want, even, though such 
self-sacrifice should seem to be demanded of me. 

“Indeed, my dear Mrs. Somers,” I replied, with 
heartfelt earnestness, “I cannot conceive the state of 
things which you describe. To me it is absolutely 
inconceivable.” 

“ And yet,” she returned, “ it is not uncommon ; 
it is what one sees almost every day, particularly 
when the question is one of marriage. And if the 
poor man won’t speak for himself — why, I suppose, 
somebody must speak for him.” 

I own that at this point I completely lost my head. 
All I could think of was that somehow, no matter 
how, she must be stopped. I explained, doubtless 
with some incoherence, that I was a disconsolate 
widower — a more or less disconsolate widower ; that 
my daughter was all, or almost all, I had to live for ; 
that her welfare had been for many years, and must 
continue to be, my chief object ; that having no son, 
I had always regarded her as my heiress, and that, 
under no stress of temptation, however great, could 


90 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 


I think of ousting her from that position. It was a 
dreadful speech to have to make, and by the time 
that I had reached the end of it I was cold and damp 
from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet ; 
hut, plainly as I had spoken, I could hardly believe 
that Mrs. Somers had grasped my meaning, for there 
she sat, smiling away as sweetly and placidly as if I 
had been paying her compliments. 

“Dear Sir Richard,” she murmured, “what you 
say about your daughter is so nice, and I am sure it 
is true too. Whatever other people may assert 
about you, and whatever she herself may fear, I, for 
one, am convinced that you only wish to make her 
happy. And feeling as you do, I know you will 
easily understand how I feel about my dear hoy. Do 
you know why I brought you into this little room, 
away from everybody else, Sir Richard ? ” 

I thought I did ; hut it was obviously out of the 
question for me to say what I thought, so I made a 
sort of interrogative mumble, and she went on : 

“You have been so very kind to dear George 
already, and now I want to ask you to do him and 
me one more great kindness — the last, I suppose, 
that we shall ever ask of you. Will you, Sir 
Richard ? ” 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 


91 

I perceived that she meant to let me off cheaply, 
and so grateful was I to her for her forbearance and 
good taste that I at once responded with fervour, 
“Dear Mrs. Somers, I will most cheerfully and joy- 
fully do anything in the world for you that I have 
it in my power to do.” 

“ How good you are ! ” she exclaimed. “ But in- 
deed it is no more than what I anticipated of you, 
and I daresay you are prepared for my humble re- 
quest. George is over-sensitive and over-scrupulous, 
I think. He tells me that you yourself once went 
the length of saying to him that if he fell in love 
with an heiress it would be a very wrong and cruel 
thing to turn his back upon her just because she was 
an heiress ; and although he has neither riches nor 
brilliant prospects, he is your daughter’s equal in 
point of birth. And they are so devoted to one 
another ” 

“Devoted to one another!” I interrupted; and 
possibly I may have added other ejaculations less 
unmeaning and more emphatic ; for I was, as well I 
might be, terribly taken aback by this unexpected 
flank movement ! But, like Herod, I had given a rash 
pledge to a lady, and she had no notion of allowing me 
to back out of it. I did not yield immediately ; but 


92 A QUEER BUSINESS. 

I yielded eventually, just as a stronger-minded and 
less unselfish man would have done, and Mrs. Somers 
explained to me how the young people had come to 
a mutual understanding that very afternoon, but 
had been too frightened of me ( a likely story ! ) to 
come and beg for my consent in person. 

Well, all things considered, I don’t complain. At 
any rate, I had the unhoped-for treat of a pleasant 
drive home ; and now that George Somers and Alma 
are married, I don’t deny that I am very well sat- 
isfied with my son-in-law. It is understood, I be- 
lieve, that when I die and Alma inherits this prop- 
erty, he will take my name ; and that is more than 
Pontefract (who, by the way, is about to espouse 
the plain-featured but richly- dowered daughter of a 
gin-distiller) would have done. 

But what I do deplore is the precipitate action of 
Mrs. Somers, who, almost immediately after her 
son’s wedding day, went and married old Sinclair. 
I think it is a pity, I think it was uncalled for, and 
I can’t but feel that I have been needlessly deprived 
ci a charming neighbour. What her motives piay 
have been for thus throwing herself away I don’t 
pretend to say ; she herself, I believe, talks about 
an attachment of long standing and so forth, which 


A QUEER BUSINESS. 93 

shows at least that she considers her conduct in 
need of some elucidation. But Lady Pontefract, 
who may have been a trifle disappointed by the turn 
which matters took, laughs and looks knowing, and 
says Mrs. Sinclair is a very clever woman. It may 
be so ; but I confess that I am unable to see it. She 
is a very agreeable woman and a very pretty woman ; 
but why she should be called clever I do not know. 
I have narrated the facts exactly as they occurred, 
and I can only end, as I began, by saying that in 
my opinion it was a queer business. Of course I 
understand what Lady Pontefract means ; but surely 
her theory is .somewhat far-fetched. To suppose 
that George’s mother deliberately settled in our 
neighbourhood with the intention of making a cap- 
ital match for her son, that she managed to get the 
two young people to fall in love with each other, 
and that she extorted a reluctant assent from me by 
scaring me out of my senses — no, I really cannot 
suppose all that ! Besides, the hypothesis would be 
too unflattering to my good friend Mrs. Sinclair. 



CLEVER LADY SOPHIA- 


About three o’clock in the morning two ladies 
muffled in wraps, were crossing the vestibule of a 
large London house, in which, as all the distracted 
neighbourhood knew, a ball was taking place. The 
elder was a somewhat insignificant -looking old 
woman, whose figure had lost all symmetry of out- 
line, who was not too well dressed, and whose round 
face any stranger might have gazed upon without 
suspecting for a moment that it had once been the 
means of breaking the hearts of half the young men 
in London. That is very ancient history, remem- 
bered only by a few grey -haired old fogeys, who 
snigger when they think of it. Lady Sophia Wylie 
has broken no hearts for the last twenty or thirty 
years ; or if she has broken any, it has -not been by 
her personal charms that she has effected such dis- 
asters. Her daughter, who walked behind her, was 
tall, slim, graceful and so pretty as almost to de- 


96 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA . 


serve the epithet of beautiful. Indeed, she was 
frequently so described, although her celebrity may 
have been in some degree diminished by the fact 
that she was the youngest and last unmarried mem- 
ber of a family whose good looks had made them 
famous all over England. She held herself erect 
and carried her head high, as all her sisters do ; 
she had the golden hair of a slightly reddish tinge, 
the blue eyes, the short upper lip, and the waxy 
complexion that they all have. Her features were, 
perhaps, not quite so regular as the Duchess of 
Grimsby’s and Lady Southsea’s, because a family 
type is apt to lose distinctness of outline by repeti- 
tion ; but some people thought that she had more 
expression than they. 

Her expression at that particular moment was 
one of utter weariness. She had been taken to 
three balls that night ; for weeks previous she had 
been going through the hard labour of a London 
season, and probably had not derived as much en- 
joyment from it as it is supposed to afford to debu- 
tantes in general. She looked sleepy and cross, and 
there is every reason to believe that her countenance 
faithfully reflected her sensations. 

A young man who had been waiting about in the 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 97 

hall advanced, with a certain perceptible diffidence, 
as the ladies emerged from the cloak-room. He 
was a handsome young man, dark-haired, broad 
shouldered, apparently well-bred ; but he lacked that 
air of assurance which belongs to peers of the realm, 
elder sons, bankers, brewers and other distinguished 
persons. To the least experienced eyes it would 
have been obvious that he was not an eligible young 
man. Neither of the ladies took any notice of him, 
although he followed them closely down the steps 
and along the strip of red carpet which crossed 
the pavement beneath the awning ; but when the 
elder lady dropped her fan, he darted forward with 
great agility, picked it up and handed it to her. 
“ Your fan, Lady Sophia,” said he. 

Lady Sophia glanced over her shoulder and 
grabbed her property. “ Oh ! ” she returned. And 
without vouchsafing him any further acknowledg- 
ment of his civility, she plunged, head first, into her 
carriage. 

But the younger lady paused a moment, extend- 
ing her hand to the handsome youth. Her face 
lighted up very prettily, as she said in a voice so 
gentle as to be almost a whisper, “ Good-night.” 

Then she followed her mother; the carriage-door 
7 


98 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


was shut with a slam, and away they went. What 
was it that those blue eyes of hers had expressed ? 
Only compassion, perhaps ; and yet a confident 
young man might have fancied that there was a sug- 
gestion of regret in them too. Our young man was 
not confident. He stood staring after Lady Sophia’s 
hired landau until it vanished round the corner, then 
sighed profoundly and went back into the house 
with slow, heavy steps. 

Now, supposing that, among the little knot of 
spectators congregated round the awning, there had 
been an individual of a slightly imaginative turn, 
one may guess that out of the scene above described 
he might easily have constructed a story — a story so 
common, so commonplace, that it is being repeated 
every day and every night, not in London only, but 
in every large city in the world ; not in one rank of 
society, but in all. A careful mother, a portionless 
daughter, a young man of insufficient income — here 
are the materials for that romance which nature 
and circumstances are for ever creating, and for the 
usual melancholy result of which nobody seems to 
be justly open to blame. Really it cannot be helped. 
Young men of insufficient income ought to fall in 
love with heiresses ; portionless young ladies ought 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


99 


not to encourage young men of insufficient income ; 
and it is the bounden duty of a careful mother to 
caution her daughter against reckless imprudence. 
The supposititious spectator might have divined 
without much difficulty what sort of conversation 
was going on inside the landau alluded to ; and in- 
deed his conjectures would not have been far wrong. 

“ Constance,” says Lady Sophia, “ I can’t have you 
so much with that young Warrender. He is not at 
all desirable.” 

“I am sorry you don’t like him,” observes the 
young lady, talking through a yawn ; “ he dances 
very well.” 

“If he danced like the daughter of Herodias, it 
would make no difference. The man is a pauper ! ” 

“ He can’t help that,” remarks Miss Wylie. 

“ I don’t know, I’m sure ; and, for that matter, I 
don’t care. And really, Constance, you must get 
out of the habit of contradicting every word that I 
say. When I tell you that Mr. Warrender is not 
desirable, that should be enough.” 

However, she did not seem to think that it was 
enough, for she went on scolding her daughter with- 
out intermission during the three or four minutes 
which the remainder of the drive occupied. Lady 


100 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


Sophia knew how to scold. It was by no means the 
only thing that she knew, although, perhaps, it was 
the only thing that she knew thoroughly. Her 
friends and her enemies were agreed in speaking of 
her as a very clever woman, meaning probably that 
she had been a very successful one. She would 
have been less successful, it may be surmised, if she 
had had a softer heart and a gentler tongue. She 
was thought to have displayed great talent in cap- 
turing the Duke of Grimsby and Lord Southsea ; 
hut, as a matter of fact, these captures had demanded 
no talent at all. Both of the noblemen in question 
were rich men; they neither asked nor expected 
anything better than to obtain wives who were 
beautiful, amiable and as well born as they; the 
difficulty was to get beautiful, amiable and well-born 
girls to accept such husbands — for the Duke of 
Grimsby was old and ugly, and Lord Southsea’s in- 
temperate habits were notorious. “ Sophia,” said a 
certain elderly and cynical relative of hers, “ never 
has had and never will have any trouble with her 
children. She has made home so infernally unplea- 
sant for them that they would cheerfully marry a 
negro with a hump upon his back to escape from it.” 
One’s relations are not, as a rule, prone to taking too 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


101 


lenient a view of one’s character, and perhaps this 
was a little hard upon Lady Sophia. Certain, how- 
ever, it is that her daughters had never disobeyed 
her, though they had wrangled a good deal with her 
before submitting to her behests. At the bottom of 
her heart she was rather afraid of Constance, who, 
unlike the others, did not wrangle, and who was ac- 
customed to listen to her lectures in unbroken and 
disconcerting silence. 

Constance, after remarking that Mr. Warrender 
danced well and could not justly be blamed for be- 
ing a pauper, said nothing more on his behalf ; and 
the consequence was that Lady Sophia’s denuncia- 
tions of him fell a little flat. Except defending a 
man whom nobody attacks, there is nothing more 
ridiculous than to attack a man whom nobody 
defends. 

Now it so chanced that, while Lady Sophia and 
her daughter were discussing Mr. Warrender, that 
gentleman was discussing them. From the ball he 
went to his club, where he met his elder brother, 
to whom he sometimes confided his troubles, and 
who, being in the main a very good-natured elder 
brother, had more than once helped him out of 
those pecuniary difficulties into which younger 


102 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


brothers are apt to fall. Into his patient ears he now 
poured the whole history of his hopeless attachment 
to the beautiful Miss Wylie. Of course, he said, it 
was a bad job. He couldn’t feel a bit sure — though 
he had sometimes hoped — that the girl herself cared 
a little for him ; but what was absolutely certain 
was that that old wretch of a mother of hers would 
be dead against him. Upon the whole, perhaps, he 
had better go and hang himself. Candidly now, what 
did his brother think ? 

Lord Warrender, a somewhat heavy young man 
of sporting proclivities, who did not go much into 
society, said he really didn’t know. Shouldn’t hang 
himself, anyhow. Thought that, by all accounts, 
Lady Sophia would be a confoundedly unpleasant 
mother-in-law, and doubted whether she would con- 
sent to be mother-in-law to any one under an earl. 
Couldn’t Claud manage to fall in love with some- 
body else? On being emphatically assured that 
Claud could not by the wildest possibility ever love 
any woman save Constance Wylie, he scratched his 
head and made a grimace. No doubt Claud’s allow- 
ance might be increased, and possibly that was what 
Claud was thinking ; but the question was whether 
the old harridan (it was thus that Lord Warrender 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


103 


stigmatised poor Lady Sophia in his own mind) 
would be satisfied with anything moderate in the 
shape of an allowance ; and another question was 
whether the game was worth the candle. One may , 
not be a particularly brilliant specimen of the 
.hereditary legislator ; but for all that, one is not, 
perhaps, quite such a fool as one looks. Therefore 
Lord Warrender committed himself to no rash 
promises ; but presently he said : 

“ I’ll tell yon what ; I wish you’d introduce me 
to these ladies. I might take soundings, don’t you 
know — find out whether there’s any chance for you, 
and — and that.” 

Claud jumped at the suggestion. After all, he 
was heir- presumptive to his brother, who was as 
rich as Croesus, and whose dislike to female society 
was well known. “ I should like nothing better,” 
he declared. “ Are you going to Lady Polking- 
ham’s to-morrow night ? ” 

“ Well, I wasn’t,” answered Lord Warrender, “ but 
I can. I believe she sent me a card.” 

“ That’s all right, then,” said Claud. “ Lady Sophia 
will be delighted to know you, and you might talk 
to her about me, and make the best of me, you know. 
Irreproachable moral character — considerable talents 


104 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


— likely to be in Parliament before long, and sure to 
get on — all that sort of thing. And then you could 
mention that I’m bound to come into a little money 
when old Granny dies, which is true, I suppose. 
She’ll leave me something — a thousand pounds^ 
most likely ; but you needn’t enter into particulars.’’ 

“I’ll do what lean,” Lord Warrender promised. 
“ All the same, if you’ll be advised by me, you’ll give 
the thing up and go in for some other girl. There 
are such lots of them about.” 

“ Wait till you’re madly in love with one of them,” 
returned his brother, “ and then come and tell me 
what you think of the others.” 

I don’t think I’m over and above likely to fall in 
love with any of ’em,” Lord Warrender said placidly. 
“ Heaven preserve us from London girls ! ” 

Wholesale condemnations of any class are usually 
traceable to insufficient acquaintance with that class. 
Lord Warrender did not know much of what he 
called “ London girls ” (by which he probably meant 
girls who had passed through a London season), and 
within twenty-four hours he was compelled to make 
a mental recantation so far, at least, as one individual 
was concerned. 

Great was the surprise, and great also the satis- 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA . 


105 


faction, of Lady Sophia when, on the ensuing even- 
ing, the ineligible young man with whom she was 
acquainted led up to her the highly eligible young 
man with whom she was not. She was almost civil 
to the former for the sake of the latter. “ The very 
husband for Constance ! ” was the thought that 
flashed instantaneously across her mind as Lord 
Warrender — tall, good-natured and rather sleepy- 
looking — came to a standstill before her and bowed. 
She had thought of several men who would do very 
well for Constance, but of none so entirely suitable 
as this. Lord Warrender had not only large estates, 
but was possessed of house-property in London and 
coal-mines in the North — a young man whom any 
mother in England would have rejoiced to press to 
her heart. Lady Sophia did not do anything so 
startling as that, but she took great pains to please 
him ; she told him how well she had known his father 
and mother in years gone by, and reproached him in 
a friendly way for so seldom showing his face in 
society. 

“ Oh, well,” he answered, “ I do go to dinners ; balls 
aren’t much in my line. The fact is I’m a shocking 
bad dancer.” 

“Like most other people,” said Lady Sophia. 


106 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


‘ There aren’t half-a-dozen good dancers in London. 
I don’t suppose you would disgrace yourself if you 
had a decent partner. Let me introduce you to my 
daughter, who really does dance well. You may 
safely trust yourself to her guidance.” 

A few minutes after this Lord Warrender was 
passing through an agreeable and altogether novel 
experience; he was waltzing with Miss Wylie, and 
actually enjoying it. It was the first time in his 
life that he had enjoyed a waltz, and in the simplicity 
of his heart he told her so. 

“ Perhaps,” she remarked gravely, “ you have never 
before met anybody who could do your step.” 

“ Have I got a step ? ” he asked. “ I’m very glad 
to hear it. I shall know what to say the next time 
I go humping round the room, and running into 
everybody. I can’t be expected to steer people who 
don’t understand my step, can I ? ” 

“ Of course not,” said Miss Wylie ; “ but I don’t 
think dancing is a particularly manly accomplish- 
ment, do you ? One forgives a man for being a little 
awkward in a ball-room, if one knows that he can 
shoot, and ride, and — and fight.” 

This view of the whole duty of man was not 
displeasing to Lord Warrender, who happened to be 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


107 


tolerably proficient in the three particulars specified. 
However, as he had a mind disposed towards equity, 
and as he recollected opportunely that he was where 
he was for the purpose of advancing his brother’s 
interests, he said, “ Well, there’s no reason why a man 
shouldn’t dance too, you know. Look at my brother 
Claud, for instance. He’s about as keen a sportsman 
as you’re likely to meet with, and yet he is one of 
the shining lights of London ball-rooms, they tell 
me.” 

“ Yes,” answered Miss Wylie, rather pensively, “ I 
should think he would do everything well.” 

“ Not that he’s quite as good a shot as I am,” Lord 
Warrender felt bound to add, in justice to himself. 
“ I mean he ain’t so certain, you know.” 

Miss Wylie had a little laugh at this. “ What a 
funny thing it is,” she said, “ that you men are always 
accusing women of being jealous, and that it never 
occurs to you that you are just as bad as we are ! 
You think yourselves far above any feeling of the 
kind because you don’t envy a man who is better 
looking or better dressed than you are ; but you ride 
jealous and you shoot jealous.” 

“ Indeed, we do not ! ” interupted Lord Warrender, 
indignantly. “ Now, upon my word, that’s the most 


108 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


unfair thing I ever heard said in my life ! Some 
fellows may behave as you say ; but they’re quite 
exceptional, I assure you. Of course I know that 
I’m a pretty fair shot ; and why shouldn’t I say so ? 
But I don’t deny for a moment that there are two 
or three men who shoot a great deal better.” 

“As many as that?” asked Miss Wylie. 

“Yes,” answered Lord Warrender consideringly, 
“ I could certainly name three. As for riding, I never 
pretended that I could ride. I go pretty straight 
it’s true ; but that is because I’m well mounted 
and don’t funk. Now you may take my word for it 
Miss Wylie, that you’ll find as little envy or jealousy 
in the hunting-field as in any assemblage of human 
beings that you can think of.” 

Thus began a conversation which Lord Warren- 
der found extremely interesting, and in the course 
of which he clean forgot the existence of his younger 
brother. His companion made herself very agreeable 
to him ; her remarks were shrewd and to the point ; 
she put him at his ease, and he had the pleasing 
conviction that she liked him. In short, to use his 
own phrase, they “ got on together like one o’clock.” 
He never suspected that she had purposely led 
him on to discourse upon topics in which he might 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


109 


be presumed to be at home ; nor did he take any 
note of the rapid flight of time. While they were 
talking, several young men came up to claim prom- 
ised dances and were dismissed with an innocent 
assurance on Miss Wylie’s part that they must have 
made some mistake. Lord Warrender chuckled at 
their discomfiture. He had always been given to 
understand that it is a lady’s prerogative to throw 
over unwelcome partners, and he would have been 
a greater stoic than he was if he had not been 
a little flattered by the implied compliment to 
himself. At length, however, Miss Wylie re- 
quested to be taken back to Lady Sophia, who 
received the errant couple with her most gracious 
smile. 

“Well, Lord Warrender,” said she, “has Con- 
stance succeeded in making a convert of you ? Are 
you beginning to find out that dancing has some 
charms, after all ? ” 

“Really, do you know, I think I am,” Lord 
Warrender answered, laughing. “How many balls 
are you going to to-morrow night? Anywhere 
where I should have a chance of meeting you, if I 
turned up?” 

“Sit down, and I’ll try to remember,” said Lady 


110 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


Sophia. “ Let me see ; to-morrow is Thursday, isn’t 
it?” 

She began running over the list of her engage- 
ments; and while she was thus occupied Claud 
Warrender slipped up and led Miss Wylie away. 
It is not likely that this manoeuvre escaped her 
ladyship’s notice ; but her brow remained unclouded. 
“Duty first, pleasure afterwards,” she may have 
thought. It is a great mistake to spur a willing 
horse, and really dear Constance had behaved admi- 
rably that evening. Let her but agree to marry the 
right man, and she should be free to flirt with the 
wrong one to any extent in reason. 

On the following morning the two brothers met. 
“How did you find Lady Sophia?” inquired the 
younger. “ I needn’t ask, though, for I saw her 
grinning and nodding her head at you like an old 
marionette. Did you manage to put in a word for 
me?” 

“Well, no,” answered Lord Warrender, penitently, 
“ I’m afraid I didn’t ; the fact is she didn’t give me 
much chance. I praised you up to the daughter, 
though.” 

“ Oh, that wasn’t necessary.” 

“ It wasn’t, eh ? All right ; I’ll run you down the 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


Ill 


next time I see her. I’ll tell you what, Claud, that’s 
the prettiest girl and — and the j oiliest girl I ever 
met. I declare I almost wish I was in your shoes ! ” 

“ I wish I was in yours,” returned Claud, laugh- 
ing ; “ I shouldn’t be much afraid of the old woman, 
then.” 

“ Oh, I expect she’ll come round all right,” said 
Lord Warrender confidently. “ She isn’t such a bad 
sort of an old woman, you know.” 

“ H’m ! that depends upon who is talking to her,” 
remarked .Claud. “Anyhow, I hope you’ll make 
her understand that you don’t want to marry her 
daughter.” 

“ Dear me ! ” said Lord Warrender, looking rather 
alarmed, “ I trust she doesn’t require any assurance 
of that kind.” 

He was by way of not being a marrying man. In 
former years all his friends and relations, beginning 
with his mother, had urged upon him somewhat too 
frequently and forcibly that it was the duty of a 
man in his position to marry. More than one lady, 
too, had striven hard to marry him ; so that he had 
ended by becoming disgusted with marriage as an 
institution, and had withdrawn himself almost en- 
tirely from the society of ladies. Yet it crossed his 


112 CL EVER LAD T SOPHIA. 

mind now that, supposing he ever should take a 
wife, he would like her to resemble Constance 
Wylie. 

More than once in the course of a week that fol- 
lowed this passing notion of his recurred to him. 
He met Miss Wylie again and again ; he danced with 
her repeatedly, and found not only that their steps 
accorded, but that her tastes and opinions agreed 
quite curiously with his own. He was conscious of 
a distinct sensation of displeasure when she said to 
him one evening, “ How wise you are to remain 
single! You are such a thorough bachelor in all 
your ways that I can’t fancy you domesticated.” 

This had hitherto been quite his own opinion; 
nevertheless, he could not help rejoining, “ Oh, well, 
I don’t know about that. I suppose if I met my 
affinity I could be as domestic as anybody else.” 

“Very likely: hut I don’t think you have met 
your affinity yet, Lord Warrender, and what I ad- 
mire in you is, that you haven’t allowed yourself to 
he drawn into matrimony by somebody who isn’t 
your affinity. Upon second thoughts, though, I 
don’t know why I should admire you. It is so sim- 
ple not to propose to a woman whom you don’t care 
for. That is a man’s privilege, and one wonders 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 113 

that men don’t avail themselves of it more exten- 
sively.” 

“I always thought,” observed Lord Warrender, 
“ that it was a woman’s privilege to refuse a man 
whom she didn’t care for.” 

Miss Wylie laughed. “ Oh, I don’t think you can 
have believed that,” she said. “ Good as you are, 
and simple as you are, you must be aware that that 
privilege is reserved for heiresses.” 

Well, no doubt he was aware of it ; and from this 
and other similar hints which she dropped, he was 
shrewd enough to perceive that she was alluding to 
her own case. Most people, when they utter oracu- 
lar generalities, do mean to allude to their own case. 
Yet he could not quite bring himself to say (as pos- 
sibly she may have wished him to say) that he knew 
she was attached to his brother, and that he was 
ready to provide for his brother to such an extent 
as to bring that young gentleman’s marriage with 
his supposed affinity within the range of conceivable 
events. For one thing, he did not know positively 
that Miss Wylie regarded his brother as her affinity ; 
and Claud had told him somewhat arrogantly that 
his cause required no pleading m that quarter. He 

avoided mentioning Claud’s name to her. He was 
8 


114 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA . 


prepared, when matters should become further ad- 
vanced — if ever they did become further advanced — 
to behave loyally and generously ; but in the mean- 
time he did not see that he could be of much service. 

In short, before a fortnight had elapsed Lord War- 
render was over head and ears in love with the 
beautiful Miss Wylie. For this it must be admitted 
that he was in no way to blame. A man can’t help 
falling in love ; and the simple truth is, that he was 
unconscious of any such catastrophe having befallen 
him. All he knew was that he was charmed and 
happy in Miss Wylie’s society, that he looked for- 
ward to encountering her at the entertainments 
which he had taken to frequenting, and that the 
days on which he failed to meet her were dull and 
blank days for him. One might say as much as that 
about one’s grandmother, supposing one’s grand- 
mother to be a singularly fascinating and sympa- 
thetic person. 

But it is hardly necessary to add that this inno- 
cent and childlike view of the situation was not 
participated in by those who saw Lord Warrender 
devoting himself, night after night, to the fair 
debutante; and at length a time came when the 
opinions of a censorious world were revealed to him 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


115 


with startling abruptness. At a ball, one evening, 
he was meditatively watching Claud and Miss Wylie 
waltzing together and was wishing in a vague way 
that nature had bestowed upon him as handsome a 
face as his brother’s, when Lady Sophia beckoned to 
him to approach. 

“Lord Warrender,” said she, after moving away 
hej dress, so as to admit of his sitting down beside 
her, “ I want to have a little talk with you. I have 
noticed — and I am sure it has been a great pleasure 
to me — that you and dear Constance have become 
fast friends. You are always together; you dance 
continually with her, and I think you admire her 
very much, don’t you ? ” 

« Nobody can admire your daughter, more than I 
do, Lady Sophia,” responded Lord Warrenden, with 
much heartiness : for, oddly enough, he had not the 
least suspicion of what was coming. 

“ I am quite convinced of that ; and — well, and so 
are other people. Y ou must not mind my dispensing 
with ceremony : it is so often the best and kindest 
thing to do. And I dare say you will understand 
that, situated as I am, I am obliged sometimes to 
say things which I should be contented with think- 
ing, if dear Constance’s father were still alive. Now, 


116 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


you know, Lord Warrender, you have been dancing 
a great deal with Constance, and people have begun 
to talk. In fairness to her I feel that I ought to tell 
you this.” 

“ I’m — I’m awfully sorry — I won’t do it again,” 
gasped Lord Warrender, utterly taking aback. 

If he had been looking at Lady Sophia, instead of 
at the floor, he would have seen an ominous change 
come over her face ; but it was in her most dulcet 
tones that she rejoined : “ Dear Lord Warrender, 
why should you not do it again ? If you feel as I 
think — as I am sure you do, you have only to say so, 
and then you will be able to dance with her as much 
as you like.” 

“ Good gracious ! ” ejaculated the astounded indi- 
vidual to whom this direct invitation was addressed. 
He had heard, in novels and plays, of men being 
asked their intentions, but had always supposed 
that, if such unpleasant experiences ever took place 
in real life, they were confined to lower middle-class 
society. He was considerably alarmed, but he was 
also angry; and it was the predominance of the 
latter emotion that enabled him to reply : 

“ You are making a great mistake, Lady Sophia, 
As I told you before, I admire Miss Wylie immense- 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


117 


ly, and if I were a marrying man — but I am not a 
marrying man ; and, in any case, I couldn’t think of 
offering myself to her ; because I suspect — in fact, 
it’s as plain as can be — that she is likely to become 
engaged to my brother before long.” 

Lady Sophia broke into a shrill laugh. « How 
ridiculous ! ” she cried. “ You are far too modest, 
Lord Warrender ; and you may take my word for it 
that Constance is about as likely to become engaged 
to your brother as to the man in the moon. Ho : I 
don’t think you will find your brother a very for- 
midable rival.” 

“ There is no question of rivalry in the matter,” 
returned Lord Warrender rather crossly, as he got 
up. “ We’ll say no more about it, if you don’t mind.” 

“ Just as you please,” answered Lady Sophia, with 
undiminished sweetness ; “ only I must remind you 
once more that I am bound to consider what other 
people say, and I know that if they see you dancing 
with Constance as you have done lately, they will 
say that you are engaged her. Indeed, that is what 
I myself shall conclude if you dance with her again.” 

Lord Warrender swallowed down an uncivil re- 
tort, made a little bow and walked straight out of 
the room. “ So there’s an end of that / ” he solilo- 


118 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


quised, as he drove away. “No more dancing for 
me, thank you ! I’m sorry for it — sorry for the poor 
girl too, to have a mother of that kind. What an 
unprincipled old creature ! I suppose she thought 
I was such a fool that it didn’t matter how openly 
she played her cards with me.” 

Nobody likes to be thought a fool or to be treated 
as such, and, without entertaining any exalted 
opinion of his own wisdom, Lord Warrender was a 
good deal annoyed by Lady Sophia’s cool assumption 
that he was a man whom no skill was required to 
bring to book. “ You don’t quite know me yet, my 
lady,” thought he to himself, as he told his servant to 
pack up his things and engage berths on board the 
steamer which was to sail for Christiansand on the 
following day. He had a river in Norway and a small 
house adjacent thereto, whither he was accustomed 
to betake himself every year in the month of June, 
with contemptuous disregard of the London season. 
This year he had postponed his departure, having 
found the season not wholly devoid of attractions ; 
but now there was nothing to keep him any 
longer away from the salmon, and off he went, 
despatching a few valedictory lines to his 
brother : — 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


119 


“ Dear Claud, — I’m afraid I can’t help you much 
with Miss Wylie. You were right about Lady 
Sophia ; she is a detestable old hag, and I shouldn’t 
wish to have her for a mother-in-law myself. How- 
ever, if you can see your way at all, and if it is a 
question of money, let me know. I’ll do what I can 
for you, within ordinary limits ; but I still think you 
had better try to fall in love with somebody else. 

I’m off to Norway to fish. Very glad to see you, 
if you care to come over. Yours affectionately, W. 

This rather heartless missive met with no re- 
sponse ; nor did any of the other men to whom Lord 
Warrender had hastily telegraphed an offer of hospi- 
tality see fit to avail themselves of it. But that 
did not distress him particularly ; for he was a man 
to whom sport was all-sufficient. At any rate, he 
had hitherto found it so ; and that he did not find it 
so now was a circumstance which gave him matter 
for grave reflection. To play a gigantic salmon for 
two hours, to lose him in the very moment of 
victory and to feel that so frightful a calamity 
leaves you perfectly cool, calm, and indifferent, is as 
every fisherman will admit, a sign of mental de- 
rangement which demands careful looking into. 
Lord Warrender had not been a week in Norway 


120 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


when he passed through this strange experience; 
and, as self-deception was not among his capacities, 
he very soon found out what was wrong with him. 
There was no doubt about it : he was in love with 
Constance Wylie, the girl of his brother’s heart — the 
girl who, as he could not but guess, would easily be 
induced to marry him under pressure of maternal 
solicitude. 

Does such a situation present any real difficulty ? — 
and can there be a shadow of a doubt as to what was 
Lord Warrender’s duty, under the circumstances? 
Of course, to us dispassionate outsiders there can be 
none. We should scorn to be accepted for the sake 
of our rank or our wealth (if we had those advan- 
tages) ; we should consider ourselves bound to give 
way to our younger brother (if we possessed such an 
incumbrance), and to remain resolutely in the back- 
ground at least until his fate should be decided. 
Nevertheless, it is probable that, were we to find our- 
selves in Lord Warrender’s position, advocatus diaboli 
would be able to meet us with very plausible repre- 
sentations. There was nothing to prove that Miss 
Wylie was in love with Claud Warrender ; there were 
excellent reasons for believing that she would be 
happy as the wife of his elder brother, and some for 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


121 


doubting whether she would be happy as the wife 
of a man whose character was not remarkable for 
steadiness or solidity. And then came the final, 
overwhelming argument : “ I never was really in love 
before in my life ; I never shall love any other woman 
as I love her. Hang it all ! haven’t I the right to 
fight my own battle ? And is it my fault if Claud 
and I don’t take the field upon exactly even 
terms ? ” 

But one of the great benefits of a healthy, open-air 
existence is that it keeps a man sane in body and 
mind. Lord Warrender fought the devil for three 
weeks in those Norwegian solitudes, and worsted 
him At the end of the struggle he was not certain 
that he would not be morally justified in giving his 
brother due notice and then entering into competition 
with him ; but he was quite certain that he could 
not adopt that course. “ There are some things that 
a fellow can’t do, don’t you know ? ” was his mental 
summing up of the question. 

Having made up his mind, he became easier. He 
had a lingering hope, to which he was fairly entitled ; 
but he was fully determined to keep his promise to 
Claud. Should the latter’s marriage prove to be 
contingent upon an increase of income, an increase 


122 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


of income should be forthcoming. More than that 
he could hardly do or say ; and more, it might be 
assumed, would not be expected of him. 

Apparently, not even so much as that was expected 
of him. He spent the summer and autumn in his 
usual fashion, shooting grouse in Yorkshire, stalking 
in Scotland, distinguishing himself among the 
pheasants in Norfolk and finally taking up his 
quarters at Melton and settling down to the serious 
business of hunting for the winter. During all this 
time he heard nothing of Lady Sophia and her 
daughter and only received one communication from 
his brother, who was a poor correspondent. Claud 
wrote in November to decline an invitation to join 
a shooting-party, and merely made a passing allu- 
sion to his amatory troubles. All that he said upon 
this subject was contained in a single brief para- 
graph at the end of his letter ; — “ I haven’t taken 
your good advice and transferred my affections, 
though there isn’t the ghost of a hope for me so long 
as old Lady Sophia lives — and, like Auld Robin 
Gray’s wife, she’s 4 no like to dee.’ I met them at 
a country house last week. People tell me that 
she had set her heart on catching you last season, 
and was awfully sold when you bolted off to Norway 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


123 


in such a hurry. I dare say you’ve forgotten all 
about last season, though.” 

Lord W arrender had forgotten nothing. He tossed 
the letter aside with an impatient exclamation. “ I 
think Claud ought to do one thing or the other,” he 
muttered. “ It would be rather hard if, after all, 
some third person should step in and quietly bear 
away the prize.” 

However, he had resolved in his dogged, phleg- 
matic way that he would not intervene until he 
could do so with a clear conscience. So he went on 
with his hunting, and enjoyed himself after a fashion ; 
and the winter passed away and the spring came, 
bringing an end of hunting, and nothing for an 
occupationless sportsman to do but to adjourn to 
the metropolis. Lord Warrender hated London, and 
it has already been said that he hated balls ; yet, in 
this particular year, he removed himself and his 
belongings to the family mansion in Portland Place, 
in a corner of which he d velt, with a certain alacrity ; 
and the very first invitation to a ball which he 
received he accepted. 

He had a distinct and perfectly legitimate hope in 
his mind when he did so. Honour did not compel 
him to avoid all occasions of seeing Miss Wylie ; and 


124 CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 

his fate decreed that before he had been five 
minutes in the ball-room he should be accosted by 
Lady Sophia. The frank cordiality of her greeting 
took him by surprise. He had not expected a very 
kindly reception at her hands after his behaviour of 
the preceding season; but it seemed that he had 
done her an injustice. 

“ So we meet again at last, Lord Warrender ! ” she 
exclaimed, while she held his hand. “ And where 
have you been hiding yourself all this long time ? 
Come and give me an account of your proceedings.” 

Lord Warrender obeyed wonderingly. “And 
you?” he asked, when he had concluded a succinct 
recital — “ where have you been, and what have you 
been doing ? And — er — how is Miss Wylie ? ” 

He was unable to put this last question with all 
the cheerful indifference which he had intended to 
throw into his voice. It was the only one of the 
three which Lady Sophia thought it necessary to 
answer. 

“ As well as possible, thanks,” she said. “ There 
she is. Don’t you think she looks well ? ” 

Constance floated past them at the moment. She 
was laughing at something that her partner was say- 
ing to her; she was more beautiful than ever if 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA . 125 

that could be ; she seemed to be in high spirits and 
had apparently not a care in the world. 

“Yes,” answered Lord Warrender, with a smoth- 
ered sigh; “she looks very well” Lady Sophia’s 
countenance assumed an expression of innocent ma- 
ternal pride. Her eyes followed her daughter for a 
few moments, and then she said softly : “ Aren’t you 
going to dance with her to-night ? She used to be 
your instructress last year — do you remember ? ” 

He remembered it very well; and he also re- 
membered what he had been told would be the 
consequence of his dancing with her again. Did 
Lady Sophia remember her own words ? He was 
half-inclined to remind her of them, but, after an 
instant’s hesitation, decided that he wouldn’t. She 
seemed disposed to let bygones be bygones, and, for 
his own part, he had no wish to drag painful re- 
miniscences from the oblivion to which they were 
best consigned. Besides, he was conscious of a 
great longing to waltz just once more with Con- 
stance. “ It shall only be once,” he said to himself ; 
« and I won’t try to meet her again— at any rate, 
until I know for certain whether Claud is really out 
of the running or not.” 

The upshot of this was that, a few minutes later, 


126 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


he was careering round the room in the headlong 
fashion which he so greatly enjoyed, and to which 
the lady who had the honour of being his unique 
partner contrived to accommodate herself with as 
much skill as of yore. Her manner was friendly, 
if not quite as cordial as her mother’s ; she made 
his heart sink by blushing a little when he casually 
introduced his brother’s name into the conversa- 
tion ; hut indeed she did not seem to be listening 
very attentively to what he was saying, and he 
noticed a look of disquietude and apprehension on 
her face. 

“ I wish people wouldn’t stare at us so ! ” she 
exclaimed, when the dance was over. “ Is it at me 
or at you that they are looking, do you think ? ” 

“ Oh, I expect it’s at me,” answered Lord War- 
render, laughing; “ I’m a sort of a dancing bear, 
don’t you know ? ” 

“ This is our dance, Miss Wylie,” interposed an 
eager young man, who had pushed his way through 
the crowd, and who looked as if he rather antici- 
pated a strugglefor his rights. 

Miss Wylie, however, did not dispute the asser- 
tion, She took the new-comer’s arm at once, and 
her late partner, falling hack a few paces, suddenly 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


127 


found himself shaking hands with Lady Sophia. 
Why was he shaking hands with her ? He had 
done that already; but, of course, if she wished 
to repeat the ceremony, it was not for him to dis- 
appoint her. 

“My dear Lord Warrender,” she was saying affec- 
tionately, “ I am so glad ! so very glad ! But not 
surprised ; for I quite expected it. Such a pretty 
way of letting us all know ! And everybody says 
you and Constance will make quite an ideal couple 
— so admirably suited to one another in all re- 
spects ! ” 

Lord Warrender was just the sort of man to 
come out strong in a moment of emergency. His 
intellect was not a great one; but he had iron 
nerves, and never lost his presence of mind. “I 
see,” said he quietly, “ you stick to what you said a 
year ago, and take my dancing with your daughter 
as equivalent to an offer of marriage. And you 
have been round the room, announcing the engage- 
ment to your friends.” 

Lady Sophia nodded smilingly; but there was 
just a shadow of apprehension in her eyes. Per- 
haps she had not anticipated quite so ready an ac- 
quiescence. “It is always better to make these 


128 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


things known at once,” said she ; “ then people can’t 
gossip any more. They have gossipped a great deal 
you know, and the affair has been going on rather 
a long time, hasn’t it? We can’t talk here; but 
you will come and see us to-morrow, won’t you ? ” 

“Perhaps,” answered Lord Warrender, gravely. 
“ Anyhow, we shall meet to-morrow night at Brent- 
ford House. In the meantime I may as well tell 
you — or perhaps 1 needn’t tell you ? — that I have 
not proposed to Miss Wylie.” 

With that he turned on his heel and made for the 
door. But although he meant to leave the house 
before any one should have time to thrust congratu- 
lations upon him which might be awkward to reply 
to, he did not mean to go away alone. He had 
caught sight of his brother standing among several 
non-dancers, and on his passage he took the younger 
man by the arm. “Come home with me, Claud,” 
he whispered ; “ I want to speak to you.” 

Shortly afterwards the two brothers were in Lord 
Warrender’s smoking-room in Portland Place. They 
had not exchanged a word during the short time ; 
but now Claud, whose face was very pale, said, be- 
fore taking the arm-chair which was pushed towards 
him.; 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


129 


“Look here, Warrender ; I suppose I can guess 
what you are going to say. There’s a rumour that 
you are engaged to Constance Wylie.” 

Lord Warrender lighted a cigar deliberately. 
“ Are you in a position to forbid the banns ? ” he 
inquired. 

“ No,” answered the other, “ I am not. She won’t 
be able to hold out against her mother. She says 
she will ; but I know better. Perhaps she may not 
give in to-morrow or next week or even next month ; 
but she will be beaten in the long run. So, if you 
like the idea of marrying a girl who doesn’t love 
you, and who does love me, you have only to sit 
still and wait.” 

Lord W arrender drew a long breath. “ I shouldn’t 
like that idea,” he observed calmly. “ I suppose, 
from your saying that she loves you, you and she 
have come to an understanding.” 

“If you can call it an understanding. I know 
that she loves me, because I have heard it from her 
own lips ; but it’s a perfectly hopeless case. I have 
a little over a thousand a year of my own, and no 
prospects. Even if you increased my income, as 
you were kind enough to say that you would do — 
even if you doubled it — it would make no difference. 


130 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


I was obliged to tell her that she was free, so far as 
I was concerned.” 

“ After drawing a confession of love from her ? ” 
I couldn’t help that, Warrender.” 

“ Well, I dare say not ; most likely I should have 
done the same thing in your place. Now listen to 
me, Claud, and let us see whether between us we 
can’t outwit her ladyship, who, I must say, strikes 
me as being too clever by half.” 

Thereupon Lord Warrender briefly related the 
circumstances which had brought about his so-called 
engagement to a lady whom he declared that he 
had not the least intention of marrying. The 
conference which ensued was somewhat lengthy; 
but it appeared to have a satisfactory termination ; 
for when the brothers parted the younger shook the 
elder warmly by the hand, exclaiming, “ Upon my 
word, Warrender, you’re the best fellow out ! ” 

“ Glad you think so,” answered Lord Warrender, 
with a slight smile. 

Perhaps Claud would have thought his brother 
an even better fellow if the whole truth had been 
told ; but there are truths which it is desirable, if 
not essential, to conceal. 

Lady Sophia arrived at Brentford House on the 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


131 


following evening with an unruffled exterior, but 
with a mind ill at ease. Lord Warrender had not 
called upon her during the day; she had passed 
through a painful scene with Constance, who had 
shown a mutinous spirit, and had addressed her 
most disrespectfully; and what future troubles 
might lie before her, she hardly dared to think. 
The moment that she entered the ball-room she 
looked anxiously round it in search of her prospec- 
tive son-in-law ; but he was not there, and she had 
to wait a whole hour before her eyes were gladdened 
by the sight of his tall figure advancing through the 
doorway, followed by that of his younger brother. 
He marched straight up to her, and, without wasting 
time upon preliminaries, plunged into the subject 
which was uppermost in the thoughts of both of 
them. 

“ Lady Sophia,” said he, “ I have been turning 
over in my mind what you said last night, and 
although, when I asked Miss Wylie to dance with 
me I did not intend asking her to be my wife, I 
suppose I can’t honourably back out of an engage- 
ment which you have chosen to make public. One 
thing, however, I must warn you of, and that is that 
I have naturally a very jealous and suspicious 


132 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


temper. I don’t know that Miss Wylie cares for 
me, nor have I the slightest ground for supposing 
that she does. Therefore, if, after this, I see her 
dancing twice consecutively with any man, I shall 
take it for granted that she is in love with that man. 
What is sauce for the goose (you think me a goose, 
don’t you ? ) is sauce for the gander, and I don’t see 
why tests that are made to apply to me shouldn’t 
apply to others.” 

“ How absurd ! ” exclaimed Lady Sophia. “ Of 
course I will tell Constance what you say, and 
if you choose, she shall give up dancing alto- 
gether; but really your suspicions are utterly 
unfounded.” 

“ Do you mean to tell me, Lady Sophia, that your 
daughter is in love with me ? ” 

Lady Sophia hesitated. She was playing an au- 
dacious game and had already obtained what she 
believed to be a signal success ; but she well knew 
that some hard battles remained to be fought and 
that it behoved her to be circumspect. “ Constance,” 
she began, “ is very modest and very timid— so un- 
like most girls of the present day ! You must not 
expect her to rush into your arms.” 

After this preface, she entered upon a lengthy 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


133 


exposition of the peculiarities of modest and timid 
characters, to which her neighbour lent a somewhat 
inattentive ear. He was watching Miss Wylie, 
who was leaving the ball-room at the conclusion of 
a dance, on his brother’s arm, and the moment that 
he saw her reappear with the same partner he moved 
abruptly away. 

He had made his entrance without greeting his 
hostess ; he now hastened to repair this omission. 
The Duchess of Brentford, who was surrounded by 
a phalanx of dowagers, held out her hand to him as 
he approached and said exactly what he had expected 
her to say — “ So I hear we are to congratulate you, 
Lord Warrender. You are a very fortunate man, I 
think.” 

“Eh? — congratulate me?” repeated Lord War- 
render, assuming a puzzled look. “ Oh ! I see what 
you mean ; but you’re putting the saddle on the 
wrong horse, Duchess. It’s my brother who is en- 
gaged to Miss Wylie; I thought everybody knew 
that I am a confirmed bachelor.” 

The Duchess looked astonished, but not convinced. 
“ Really ? ” said she ; “ and yet it was Lady Sophia 
herself who told me.” 

“You must have misunderstood her; she said 


134 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 


Claud Warrender, not Lord Warrender. For good- 
ness’ sake, correct the report, or everybody will say 
I’ve been thrown over, and then I shall have all 
the old women in London trying to console me.” 

He corrected it himself in several instances before 
he rejoined Lady Sophia, by whose side he sank down 
with a sigh of relief. 

“ Lady Sophia,” said he, “ prepare yourself for a 
shock. I am not going to marry your daughter, and 
my brother Claud is. She has danced wdth him 
twice running, and, as I told you I should, I take 
that as a sign that she is in love with him. Besides, 
it’s the truth. I have borrowed a leaf out of your 
book and been round the room telling everybody that 
they are engaged ; I said your announcement of last 
night had been misunderstood. Don’t screech or 
make a row until you have heard what I have to say, 
please ; you can’t get out of it, and you may as well 
make the best of it. There’s a property in War- 
wickshire, left me by my uncle, and worth from six 
to seven thousand a year, which I mean to hand over 
to Claud. It ought to have gone to him any way ; 
I’m sure I don’t want it ; it takes me. all my time to 
live in the houses that I’ve got. And that isn’t all. 
I have reasons which I am not going to tell you, but 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA. 185 

which are perfectly respectable reasons, for think- 
ing that I shall never marry, and Claud, as you know, 
is heir-presumptive. I’m a thundering bad rider ; 
I never look where I’m going, and an accident might 
happen any day, don’t you see ? ” 

Lady Sophia bit her fan, and looked pensive. 
Seven thousand a year is very far from being the 
same thing as seventy thousand ; yet in these hard 
times one may have to put up with less. And then, 
the possibilities ! 

“ Oh ! ” said Lord Warrender, with a laugh. “ I 
don’t promise to break my neck, you know ; but it’s 
an imaginable contingency, and you can keep up your 
spirits by thinking about it. Now, Lady Sophia, I 
hope we shall remain friends. Very few things are 
worth quarrelling over, and, for my part, now that 
I’ve paid you out in your own coin, I don’t bear 
malice. Only you really shouldn’t he so awfully 
clever.” 

He slipped away without waiting for a rejoinder, 
and soon found an opportunity of offering his con- 
gratulations to his future sister-in-law, whose eyes 
expressed the thanks which her lips had some diffi- 
culty in framing. 

Thus was accomplished a sacrifice the existence 


136 


CLEVER LADY SOPHIA . 


of which has never been suspected. Lady Sophia, 
perceiving that under no circumstances could she 
hope to recapture the elder brother, was fain to con- 
tent herself with the younger, and before the close 
of the season Constance Wylie became Mrs. War- 
render. 

Her husband has entered Parliament, and is likely 
to make a career for himself ; both his future and 
hers, as far as appearances go, will be prosperous 
and happy. Lord Warrender has not yet broken his 
neck ; but perhaps it would be rash to affirm that his 
heart is equally intact. Broken hearts are not 
always made manifest to the world by pale cheeks 
and haggard looks ; and indeed a man who has suf- 
fered the loss of his capacity for falling in love may 
lead a wholesome, useful and not altogether disagree- 
able life, just as he may after the loss of an arm or 
a leg. 


POOB HAEEY. 


One Sunday morning, in the month of July, 1883, 
a dreadful thing happened at the parish church 
of Motcombe Regis during divine service. The 
Rector had selected for his text that passage from the 
epistle of St. Paul to the Colossians in which the 
Apostle exhorts his followers to set their affections 
on things above, not on things of the earth, and 
he was, as usual, jogging along quite comfortably 
towards his application, while two- thirds of the 
congregation — also as usual and quite as comfort- 
ably — had composed themselves to sleep, when he 
and they were startled by a clear young voice, 
coming from the west end of the building, which 
called out audibly, “ That’s a lie ! ” 

If one were put upon one’s oath as an accurate 
historian, one would be compelled to add that the 
word “ lie ” was preceded by a forcible and profane 


138 


POOR HARRY. 


adjective; but really the ejaculation is quite bad 
enough as it stands ; and what made it the more 
unpardonable was that it was altogether inappro- 
priate. For what was poor Mr. Staddon saying 
when he was thus scandalously interrupted ? Why, 
simply that the objects upon which we are apt to 
set our affections here below are as often as not 
those which, if granted to us, would by no means 
promote our happiness, and that most of us have 
very good reason to be thankful for our disap- 
pointments. That, surely, is a truth so elementary 
that nobody could lose much by having slept through 
the enunciation of it, and that its enunciator might 
fairly expect it to pass unchallenged under any 
circumstances. Harry Lear, however, thought differ- 
ently, and took the unheard-of course of expressing 
his dissent in the manner described. 

Well, he was hustled out of church by two of his 
friends (who, perhaps, made rather more noise over 
it than was necessary), and nobody fell asleep again, 
and the Rector, in a somewhat trembling voice, 
brought his discourse to a conclusion. 

The Rector, good man, was terribly upset by 
this episode, the remembrance of which made him 
miserable throughout the rest of the day. He had 


POOR HARRY. 


139 


some rough fellows in his parish, and though none 
of them had ever gone the length of creating a dis- 
turbance in church, he would not have been so 
very much surprised if they had, because, in truth, 
their respect for authority was small, especially 
since certain political agitators had come down to 
turn their heads with harangues about the rights 
of labour and the nationalisation of the land. But 
that Harry Lear, who had sung in the choir as a 
boy, whom he himself had prepared for confirma- 
tion, and whom he had firmly believed to be a fine, 
steady, manly lad — that Harry Lear, of all people, 
should so grossly misconduct himself was sad and 
inexplicable, indeed. Or rather, it was not exactly 
inexplicable; only the explanation — the sole con- 
ceivable explanation — was almost as distressing as 
the offence ; for very evident it was to the Rector that 
Harry, when he had come to church that day, must 
have had too much to drink. 

Mr. Staddon was a bachelor. It is possible that 
if he been a married man, his inductive capacities 
would have been less limited, and it is also possible 
that in that case his disposition to condone such 
sins as drunkenness and profanity would have 
been a shade less ready. Not, indeed, that he 


140 POOR HARRY. 

underrated the heinousness of these crimes, hut he 
could make more allowance for temptation than 
ladies are generally supposed to do ; besides which, 
it was his creed that genuine and hearty repentance 
is the utmost that one erring mortal ought to 
demand of another. Now when he awoke on the 
Monday morning he was as sure as he could be of 
anything that Harry Lear must by that time be 
sincerely penitent ; and so after breakfast he set 
forth to rebuke the delinquent with a tolerably 
confident expectation of receiving the apology 
which was his due. 

He tramped briskly downwards across the heathery 
moorland (for Motcombe Regis stands high upon 
the hill country on the borders of Devon and Corn- 
wall), his black coat tails fluttering and his long 
grey hair blown back from his rosy cheeks, as he 
met the west wind, until he reached that sunny and 
sheltered ravine which old Mr. Lear, by the in- 
defatigable industry of a lifetime, had succeeded in 
converting into the most prolific market garden for 
many miles round. There, as he had anticipated, 
the first person whom he saw was old Mr. Lear 
himself ; and old Mr. Lear, on descrying his visitor, 
stuck his fork into the manure-heap upon which he 


POOR HARRY. 


141 


had been engaged, straightened his bent back, raised 
his forefinger to the brim of his battered hat and 
said, “ Mornin’, sir” 

“ Good morning, Mr. Lear,” returned the Rector. 
“ This is a bad business. I did not see you in 
church yesterday ; but your wife, I believe, was 
there, and you must have heard what occurred. 
It is a most disgraceful affair — most disgraceful 
and shameful ! ” 

Mr. Lear dropped his arms upon the gate which 
separated him from his interlocutor. He was a little 
wizened old man — aged rather by toil and exposure 
than by time — who at all seasons and in all weathers 
wore a tall hat, a waistcoat with black calico sleeves, 
corduroy breeches and leather gaiters. “ So ’tis, sir,” 
he agreed, in the tone of an impartial observer of 
men and things. “Aw, yis, ’tis shameful, sure 
enough.” 

“ So much so,” continued the Rector, “ that I am 
certain Harry would never have behaved in such a 
way if he had been in his sober senses. But that, 
you see, unfortunately brings us to the conclusion 
that he was not sober.” 

Mr. Lear shook his head decisively. To begin 
with, his boy was no drunkard ; in the second place, 


142 


POOR HARRY. 


he had had no opportunity of getting drunk on the 
previous day ; thirdly and lastly, he certainly had 
not been drunk. 

« Well, but, Mr. Lear, if he was not intoxicated, 
he knew what he was doing ; and what motive can 
you suggest for his having insulted me, and, 
what is far worse, insulted his Maker as he 
did?” 

“Well,” answered Mr. Lear, slowly drawing his 
hand across his chin, which had been shaved twenty- 
four hours before and was therefore less stubbly 
than usual, “ ’tis a long story to tell ’ee, sir, and I 
don’t know as I could tell it rightly if I was to try ; 
but to cut it short, what he’s got in his mind is to 
’list for a sodger. Goin’ down to Plymouth and 
seein’ of the redcoats maybe — I don’t know — and his 
mother she’s mortal angry with him, and won’t so 
much as hear it spoke of.” 

“ No wonder ! ” ejaculated the Rector. “ Dear 
dear, I’m very sorry to hear this. Still, I don’t 
quite see how it accounts for his conduct.” 

“ Don’t know as it does, sir ; but there’s been a 
deal o’ talk and hargyment, and his mother, bein’ 
such a pious woman and a bit fond of her own way 
tu, as I’m bound to own — what I mean to say, a 


POOR HARRY. 


143 

young feller as ’d like to have his own way might be 
druvto desp’rate courses.” 

“ I see,” said the Rector meditatively ; “ you think 
he deliberately behaved in such a way as to make 
his mother ashamed to keep him in the parish. But 
surely, Mr. Lear, you yourself can’t wish your only 
son to go away and leave you in your old age ! ” 

To this Mr. Lear made no reply. He had taken 
up his fork again and was casting manure to right 
and left of him in a somewhat reckless fashion. He 
was evidently agitated, but did not seem desirous of 
expressing any sentiments of his own upon the 
subject. 

“ Well,” said the Rector after a pause, “ I daresay, 
I had better speak to Harry himself.” 

Mr. Lear silently intimated his concurrence in that 
view. “ Though the boy did ought to beg your par- 
don, sir,” said he ; “ yis, that he did.” 

The Rector made his way through the gooseberry 
and currant bushes to the one-storeyed white house, 
the interior of which was always kept in a condition 
of such scrupulous cleanliness by Mrs. Lear. He 
found that thin, hard-featured woman in the kitchen, 
where it was plain that she had been expecting his 
viist, and where, after dusting a wooden chair for 


144 


POOR HARRY. 


him with her apron, she listened in ill-disguised 
impatience to his introductory remarks. 

“ ’Tis all along o’ that gell, sir ! ” she broke in long 
before he had finished what he had to say. “ Who 
be she, I’d like to know, to turn up her nose at her 
betters? But Harry he’s been fairly mazed ever 
since she began to cold-shoulder him, and now he 
don’t think no more o’ dissecrating the Lord’s house 
than he do of breakin’ his mother’s heart.” 

“ Oho ! ” said the Rector, smiling ; “ so there’s a 
young woman at the bottom of it, is there ? I might 
have guessed as much. And pray who is this 
young woman ? ” 

“ Oh, la ! — there ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Lear with *a 
snort (for, although she was a zealous Churchwoman, 
she was well aware that respect for Mr. Staddon’s 
sacred calling was compatible with a poor opinion of 
his individual perspicacity), “ ’tis that Bella Harvey, 
the schoolmissus, as everybody in the parish knows. 
And I on’y wish she’d stopped down to Plymouth, 
where she got the book- lamin’ she’s so proud about, 
’stead o’ cornin’ back here to make all this mis- 
cheef.” 

“ Isabella Harvey ? ” said the Rector. “A most 
respectable girl and a very efficient teacher. I am 


POOR HARRY. 145 

sorry Harry has been unsuccessful ; but I applaud 
his choice — I applaud his choice.” 

This made Mrs. Lear very angry, and as she had 
always a fine flow of language at command, she 
proceeded for the best part of a quarter of an hour 
to descant upon the demoralising effects of “ eddica- 
tion” in general and its evil consequences as exem- 
plified in the case of Bella Harvey in particular, 
while the Rector drummed upon the table with his 
fingers and smiled and let her talk on. He did not 
contradict her, but when she paused to take breath 
he got up and said he thought he would go and try 
to find Harry. In truth the good man was not dis- 
pleased by what he had heard. This reckless con- 
duct and this talk about enlisting were foolish 
enough, no doubt : but, since they had their origin 
in an honest love-affair, there was hope for the 
offender. 

However, the matter was more serious than he 
imagined, and he changed his point of view after 
a few minutes’ conversation with Harry, whom he 
discovered in the orchard. That blue-eyed, curly- 
headed young giant was sitting idly under an apple- 
tree, his back resting against the trunk, his legs 

stretched out before him and his hands thrust into 
io 


146 


POOR HARRY. 


his pockets. He did not get up nor did he express 
any contrition for what he had done. 

“I’ve said it, and I won’t take it back,” was his 
dogged reply to what, considering all things, was 
not a very severe lecture. “ I don’t see no manner 
o’ good in telling people that curses is blessings. 
’Taint true — and they know it — and you know it.” 

“ Harry, Harry ! ” said the Rector sorrowfully, 44 1 
never thought to hear you speak like that to me. 
I may have failed in my duty as a parish priest, and 
I am afraid you are a proof that I have failed ; but 
at least you ought to know that I would not wil- 
fully say from the pulpit what I believed to be 
untrue.” 

Then Harry rose to his full height of six foot two, 
while a distressed look spread itself over his hand- 
some face. 44 What be I to do, sir ? ” he exclaimed. 
44 Father knows how ’tis with me ; but mother she 
won’t see it ; and I don’t want to run away from 
home like a thief. Where’s the shame of serving 
Her Majesty ? ’Tis better to do that than to stop on 
here and go to the devil — as I should. The devil’s 
in me, sir, and that’s all about it. If ever I’m to 
drive him out again ’twon’t be by hoeing taters nor 
yet by carryin’ vegetables to Plymouth market.” 


POOR HARRY . 


147 


Well, the Rector got his apology out of this grace- 
less parishioner after all. Harry admitted that he 
had behaved abominably, hut thought it quite likely 
that he might behave worse if he were constrained 
to remain at Motcombe Regis against his will ; and 
indeed Mr. St addon was inclined to think so too. 
Whether the poor lad had really been jilted by Miss 
Isabella Harvey or whether he had allowed himself 
to entertain unwarranted hopes it was not easy to 
determine ; but what was very evident was that he 
had in him a great store of energy for good or for 
evil, and that that store imperatively demanded an 
outlet. That any adequate outlet could be alforded 
by the pursuit of market-gardening seemed most 
improbable ; and so, after a discussion somewhat 
too lengthy to be reported here, the Rector was fain 
to range himself upon the young man’s side. Other 
discussions far more lengthy and far more stormy 
followed as a matter of course, but the end of it was 
that Mrs. Lear’s opposition was overcome and that 
she acquiesced tearfully and reproachfully in a de- 
cision the entire responsibility for which she cast 
upon the Rector’s shoulders. 

The Rector, for his part, did not under-estimate 
the responsibility and was far from happy in accepting 


148 


POOR HARRY. 


it. Certainly there is no shame in serving the Queen, 
but only a very small part of a soldier’s life is usu- 
ally spent in fighting the Queen’s enemies, and Mr. 
Staddon dwelt in the neighbourhood of a garrison 
town. He was a bachelor ; his parishioners, and 
especially his grown-up choir-boys, were like his 
own children ; it was impossible for him to look for- 
ward without some trepidation to the kind of life 
which lay before Harry Lear. Yet what help was 
there for it? Children must needs grow into men, 
and if a man means to go to the bad, to the bad he 
will go, whether it be in barracks or in a country ham- 
let. This perhaps, was also the opinion of old Lear, 
who had very little to say upon the subject. He 
looked sad, and doubtless felt so ; but, being no fool, 
he submitted to the inevitable, as we all must, and 
did not care to relieve his feelings by making a fuss 
about it. 

Thus it came to pass that, one fine morning, Harry 
Lear trudged down the village street with a bundle 
over his shoulder, and whom should he meet on his 
way (possibly this encounter was neither unforeseen 
nor undesigned by him) but the village schoolmis- 
tress, tripping along towards her daily avocations 
at her customary hour? A very pretty and trim 


POOR HARRY. 


149 

little brunette this village schoolmistress was, dressed 
a trifle above her station, as some people might have 
thought, though in truth her costume was quiet and 
modest enough, so far as material went. If it fitted 
her remarkably well and was cut in accordance with 
the latest fashion, that was, no doubt, due to the 
circumstance that she had resided for six months 
under the roof of her aunt, who was a dressmaker 
in a good way of business at Plymouth, and that she 
should have profited by the family talent was only 
creditable to her. 

But it was scarcely so creditable to her that on 
catching sight of an old friend, she first stuck her 
chin in the air, pretending not to see him, and then 
skipped nimbly on one side and tried to hurry past, 
as though she had been in fear of being insulted by 
him. 

Harry took a long stride and placed himself in 
front of her, so as to bar her passage ; yet, notwith- 
standing this somewhat aggressive movement, noth- 
ing could have been more humble or more piteous 
than the voice in which he said, “ Won’t you wish 
me good-bye, Bella ? ” 

“ Are you going away, then, Mr. Lear ? ” inquired 
Miss Bella with an air of surprise. 


150 


POOR HARRY. 


“ Yes, Bella, I am going to Plymouth to enlist ; 
and. you know why. You might wish me Godspeed . 
’twould be something for me to remember.” 

“ Going to enlist as a common soldier ! ” exclaimed 
Bella, to whom we may be sure that this was no 
news, and who chose to ignore the latter half of 
Harry’s sentence. “Well, that does seem a pity! 
Though I daresay you know best ; and certainly dis- 
cipline is good for some people. A private soldier 
would get into trouble if he took it into his head 
to bawl and swear in church, I suppose.” 

“ I’ve asked the Rector’s pardon,” returned Harry 
rather shortly. “ Maybe I had my reasons for what 
I did ; but that’s neither here nor there. Motcombe 
has got rid of me now, and so have you. It wouldn’t 
cost you a great deal to give me a kind word before 
we part, Bella.” 

“I’m sure I wish you every success and — and 
amusement in your new calling, Mr. Lear. Perhaps 
you won’t mind my saying that I should prefer 
your addressing me as Miss Harvey. It’s more 
usual.” 

“ After having called you Bella all my life ? ” 

“ I am n °t & child any longer, Mr. Lear, nor are 
you, though I must say that you sometimes behave 


POOR HARRY . 151 

very like one. But I shall be late for school if I 
stand here talking. Good-bye, Mr. Lear.” 

“ Good-bye — Miss Harvey,” returned Harry sadly ; 
and so they parted without so much as sha kin g 
hands. 

But before she had taken half-a-dozen steps Bella 
was apparently struck by an afterthought, for she 
stopped short, faced about and returned towards 
her disconsolate lover with a smile upon her lips. 
She had stuck a posy of forget-me-nots in the front 
of her dress, one of which flowers she now detached 
and held out to him. “I have heard that soldiers 
sometimes need to be reminded of those whom they 
have left behind them,” she remarked demurely. 

Then she turned once more and was out of sight 
before Harry had half recovered from the amaze- 
ment into which he had been thrown by so unex- 
pected a gift. It will be perceived that this inno- 
cent and rustic maiden knew how to flirt as well as 
any lady in Belgravia or Mayfair. The art of flirta- 
tion is, indeed, a very simple art, and one of which 
the rudiments may be readily acquired. 

The regiment in which Harry Lear enlisted had, 
like nine-tenths of * the corps which compose the 
British army, recently received a designation under 


152 


POOR HARRY. 


which its best friends might have failed to recog- 
nise it. It was now known as the Princess Char- 
lotte of Wales’s Royal Berkshire, and he had prob- 
ably selected it in preference to any other regi- 
ment then quartered at Plymouth because it was 
under orders to leave that place immediately for 
Aldershot. During the next few months he did 
not write very frequently to his parents, hut his 
letters, when they came, were always of a satis- 
factory nature. Perhaps, as Bella Harvey had ob- 
served, discipline is good for some people ; perhaps 
the education which Harry had received stood him 
in good stead, or perhaps he had a natural aptitude 
for soldiering. However that may be, his promo- 
tion was unusually rapid, and the Rector, hearing 
at intervals of his advancement to the successive 
grades of lance-corporal, corporal and sergeant, was 
rejoiced and comforted. Autumn, winter and spring 
had passed away and summer had come round again 
when the news reached Motcombe Regis that old 
Mr. Lear’s son had attained to the latter honourable 
rank ; and if the whole truth must be told, old 
Mr. Lear — ordinarily a most temperate man — drank 
rather more cider than was good for him 
upon the strength of it, thereby earning for 


POOR HARRY. 153 

himself the conjugal rating which he doubt- 
less deserved. 

• As for honest Mr. Staddon, he rubbed his hands 
and said to himself, with pardonable complacency, 
“ I think if I were to preach my last year’s sermon 
over again in Harry’s hearing he wouldn’t call me a 
liar now.” In truth he quite hoped that that un- 
lucky attachment of Harry’s was. by this time a 
thing of the past and that its consequences would 
prove by no means so disastrous as they had once 
appeared likely to be. 

Whether Miss Bella Harvey altogether concurred 
in that hope is another question. A sergeant is 
not exactly the same thing as a private soldier; 
but, setting that consideration aside, it is probable 
that she like the rest of her sex was not particu- 
larly anxious that any rejected suitor of hers should 
get over his disappointment too soon. However, 
her thoughts were just now a good deal occupied 
with a rival of Harry’s, who might be considered a 
very formidable rival as regarded social position, 
though scarcely so in respect of personal ap- 
pearance. 

The Reverend Ernest Whites tole, Mr. Staddon’s 
curate, had straw-coloured hair, protuberant eyes of 


154 


POOR HARRY. 


an indeterminate hue and a chin which ran away 
from his nose. Physical beauty, therefore, was not 
his strong point; hut he had other points about 
him which were very strong indeed : his gentility, 
for instance, which was beyond dispute; also his 
irreproachable character ; also his deep and rever- 
ent admiration for Miss Bella. And he lodged in 
the house of Miss Bella’s aunt, with whom that 
orphan had found a home ; so that occasional oppor- 
tunities of entering into conversation with the ob- 
ject of his affections were afforded to him elsewhere 
than at the schoolhouse. He did not, it is true, avail 
himself of these opportunities to the full extent that 
he might have done, his remarks, when they did 
not bear upon strictly parochial affairs, referring 
for the most part to atmospheric conditions ; still, 
if a man’s meaning be but clear, it is a matter of 
secondary importance that he should express it 
clearly, or indeed that he should express it at all. 
Now Mr. Whitestole’s meaning was perfectly clear 
both to Bella and to her aunt. 

Miss Harvey the elder, though a less successful 
woman than her sister the Plymouth dressmaker, 
was nevertheless one who enjoyed a high measure 
of local esteem, having for many years satisfactorily 


POOR BARRY. 


155 


met the small local demand for linen-drapery, 
besides having faithfully served the State in the 
capacity of postmistress of Motcombe Regis. She 
was, therefore, not disinclined towards ambitious 
matrimonial views on behalf of her niece, and it is 
very likely that she would have felt quite justified 
in encouraging the amorous Whitestole but for the 
quasi-maternal obligations which her position with 
regard to that young man seemed to impose upon her. 
For the privilege of lodging the curate was hers by 
prescriptive right. She had always lodged Mr. Stad- 
don’s curates and had always considered herself as 
in a measure responsible for their conduct, as well 
as for the darning of their socks. Thus, when she 
saw how things were going, it became a question of 
conscience with her whether she ought not to 
« speak to the Rector,” and she was only dissuaded 
from taking that officious course by the representa- 
tions of Bella, who pointed out to her that 
to do this would be to assume what as yet 
Mr. Whitestole had given nobody the right to 
assume. 

« Of course you can do whatever you think pro- 
per, Aunt Susan,” said she submissively; “but you 
will make me look very foolish if it turns out that 


156 


POOR HARRY. 


you have made a mistake, and — I am afraid you will 
lose your lodger.” 

Acknowledging the cogency of these arguments, 
Miss Harvey consented to hold her peace, and, for 
the time being, took up an attitude of observant 
neutrality. 

All doubt as to the curate’s intentions was, how- 
ever, put an end to, so far as Bella was concerned, 
one Sunday evening, when he overtook her while 
she was walking slowly homewards across the fields 
from church. Her apparent astonishment and her 
asseverations that she had never dreamt of such a 
thing as his asking her to be his wife may not have 
been wholly sincere ; but, after all, it is permitted to 
women to be a little bit insincere under such cir- 
cumstances, and great allowance should doubtless be 
made for those who are not quite certain about 
their own wishes. Bella allowed it to be understood 
that this was her predicament. “What would 
your family think of it. Mr. Whitestole ? ” she asked. 

Mr. Whitestole, being a truthful man, was con- 
strained to reply that, to the best of his belief, his 
family wouldn’t like it at all. “ But that,” he added 
“ is only because they have not seen you and do not 
know what you are. I feel sure that when I have 


POOR HARRY. 


157 


described yon to my mother she will yield ; and as 
for my father, I must tell him respectfully but 
firmly that my mind is made up. To incur his 
displeasure would naturally be painful to me, but to 
resign you, Bella, would be more painful still.” 

“ But then — wouldn’t he perhaps cut you off with 
a shilling ? ” the practical Bella suggested diffidently. 

Mr. Whites tole admitted that that was possible, 
but did not seem to have reflected that the support 
of a wife and family upon his present stipend was 
altogether impossible. 

It may be conjectured that this reflection was 
made for him. At any rate he got no promise — not 
even a conditional one — from the fair schoolmistress, 
who only declared that nothing would induce her to 
marry him without his father’s consent. That, she 
was sure, would be wrong ; she was not sure about 
anything else, except that the subject must be 
dropped for the present and that not a word must be 
said about it to anybody in Motcombe Regis. With 
these terms Mr. Whitestole was fain to content him- 
self. Later in the summer he would be going home 
for a three weeks’ holiday, and then he would speak * 
to his people ; until that time he would endeavour, 
he said, to possess his soul in patience. 


158 


POOR HARRY . 


Possibly Mr. Whitestole was a foolish fellow. 
One cannot speak positively upon the point because, 
different people have different ideas as to what con- 
stitutes folly ; but, at all events, he was a loyal and 
honest man. From that day forth he spoke no 
more to Bella Harvey of love, but she perfectly 
understood that this was not because his love for 
her had diminished, and it may be hoped that she 
appreciated his delicacy. She bade him farewell 
with a charming mixture of shyness and regret 
when he departed on his well-earned leave of absence 
in the month of August, timidly expressing a hope 
that he would enjoy himself. To this he replied 
that an occasional holiday was good for everybody, 
but that he did not think he should be very sorry 
to return to his work. 

That an occasional holiday is good for everybody 
is a sentiment with which Sergeant Lear would 
have fully agreed ; and that Sergeant Lear and the 
Reverend Mr. Whitestole should have been granted 
a respite from the performance of their respective 
duties at one and the same time was a coincidence 
. which Miss Bella Harvey might well consider pro- 
vidential. Motcombe Regis did not think highly 
of “sodgers” in the abstract, and Harry Lear’s 


POOR HARRY. 


159 


determination to enlist had been generally looked 
upon as a sad example of voluntary self-abasement ; 
but when this dazzling young non-commissioned 
officer returned home on furlough to visit his parents 
Motcombe Regis felt proud of him, and told him so. 
Even his mother had to confess that he was 
“ smartened up wonderful.” She regretted, indeed, 
his beautiful curly hair, which was now cropped so 
close to his head that it scarcely curled at all ; but 
there was no denying that his carefully trimmed 
moustache and smooth-shaven cheeks gave him an 
air of vast superiority over the rustics amongst 
whom he had been brought up, nor could she help 
admiring his erect figure and his firm springy gait. 

And it is hardly necessary to add that, if she ad- 
mired him, tho younger women of the village admired 
him still more. The story of his blighted affection 
was no secret to them, and more than one of those 
comely damsels would have been easily persuaded 
to undertake the task of consoling him. However, 
he had no eyes for them, nor many words either. 
His manner had acquired a certain peremptory ab- 
ruptness which in no wise accorded with the lei-* 
surely West-country method of carrying on conver- 
sation and which was not of a nature to encourage 


160 POOR HARRY. 

advances. Even the Rector was a little over-awed 
by him, respectful though he was and anxious to ex- 
press his sincere regret for the breach of decorum 
which had led to his abandonment of Motcombe 
Regis and market-gardening. 

“I hardly know you, Harry,” the worthy man 
said ; “ I shouldn’t have thought that any amount 
of drilling could have so changed a lad. But I sup- 
pose you must have been born to be a soldier.” 

“ I suppose so, sir,” answered Harry briefly. 

But all this military shortness and abruptness 
disappeared entirely when the sergeant was per- 
mitted to hold parley with his -old flame, Miss Bella 
Harvey. It was a long time before he obtained that 
permission, because it was her pleasure to keep him 
at a distance, to be occupied (although it was holi- 
day time) whenever he came to her aunt's house, 
and to be provided with a companion of her own sex 
as often as he met her in the village. Within a day 
or two of the expiration of his furlough, however, 
he had the good fortune to encounter her upon the 
moor, a full two miles from home — or, to speak more 
correctly, he had the good fortune to be allowed to 
join her ; for, as a matter of fact, he had traced her 
the whole way from her house, and whether she had 


POOR HARRY. 


161 


been aware that he was following her or not, who 
can tell ? In any case she did not refuse to converse 
with him, and his conversation at the outset was of 
a humble, deferential and extremely uninteresting 
description. It was not until he had been sitting 
beside her on the sun- warmed heather, and enun- 
ciating solemn commonplaces for a full quarter of 
an hour, that he suddenly took his courage in both 
hands and said : 

“ Bella — I beg your pardon, Miss Harvey — I want 
to tell you before I go away that there’s been no, 
change in me this last year. I love you just the same 
as I always have, and I always shall. Look here! ” 
— he drew a sheet of paper from his breastpocket, 
which, on being unfolded, disclosed a brown and 
dried flower which had once been a forget-me-not — 
“ I’ve kept this with me and looked at it morning 
and evening ever since I joined ; and if I’ve got on 
well and got on quickly, that’s what I have to thank 
for it. I’ve kissed it I don’t know how many thousand 
times, because ’twas your hand that gave it me, 
Bella — Miss Harvey, I mean.” 

“ That was very silly of you, Harry— Sergeant 
Lear, I mean,” observed Bella, casting down her 
eyes and smiling. 


11 


162 


POOR HARRY. 


a Was it ? Well, r don’t know ; I doubt I should 
never have been a non-commissioned officer without 
it. And sometimes — but perhaps you’d think that 
silly too— I said to myself that non-commissioned 
officers have got their commissions before now, and 
will again. I know well enough that a sergeant, 
even a colour-sergeant, is beneath you ; but a sub- 
lieutenant is a gentleman, whatever his birth may 
have been.” 

“ Indeed ! And what do you have to do before 
you can rise to be a sub-lieutenant ? ” 

« Ah, there ’tis ! The only chance is active ser- 
vice ; but t’other battalion is in Egypt, and I might 
be sent out to join ’em any day, and then, perhaps, 
if I was lucky — but maybe it’d make no difference 
with you if I was.” 

Bella was not quite prepared to say that. From 
time immemorial ladies have been pleased by doughty 
deeds, and the brave have deserved the fair. Dur- 
ing the prolonged colloquy which ensued she gave 
him no excuse for assuming that victory was within 
his grasp ; but, on the other hand, she was good 
enough to say that she considered his past miscon - 
duct atoned for by his recent steadiness, and in the 
course of their homeward walk she led him on to 


POOB HABBY. 


163 


expatiate upon the glorious possibilities which await 
every fighting man. The conclusion which he drew 
from her extremely guarded utterances, after he had 
said good-night to her, was that if only he could 
manage to distinguish himself in the field, there 
would at least be hope for him, but that in justice 
to herself she could never consent to follow the drum 
as a mere sergeant’s wife. 

Of these hopes he said nothing to his mother, 
though she questioned him as closely as she dared ; 
but with his father he was a little more communi- 
cative. 

“ Wants to be a lady, do she ? ” was the comment 
of that man of few words. “Might be shorter cuts 
to that than through wars and glory.” 

“ I don’t know of any,” said Harry. 

“ Not for you to get to be a gentleman, my boy, 
but for she — well, there’s curates. One of ’em 
lodgin’ at her aunt’s at this present time.” 

“I’m not much afraid of him ,” Harry declared 
after a short pause. 

“ Ah ! ” said old Mr. Lear, and returned to the 
horticultural operations which this dialogue had 
interrupted. 

Afraid or not afraid, Harry had to go back to his 


164 


POOR HARRY. 


regiment, and this time he took no forget-me-not 
with him as a parting gift. Possibly Mis& Harvey 
thought that such an aid to memory was no longer 
requisite. 

If he had looked out of the railway-carriage win- 
dow at Exeter he might have recognised amongst 
the passengers in the down train, which he met 
there, the pensive countenance of his rival. Mr. 
Whitestole, who habitually looked pensive, had 
better reasons than usual for looking so now. It is 
enough to make any dutiful son look pensive when 
his mother tells him that she is determined to 
oppose the dearest wish of his heart tooth and nail, 
and this was the unwelcome piece of news which 
the poor man had to convey to Motcombe Regis. 
Being too honest to conceal the truth, he made it 
known to Bella immediately after his arrival. 

“ It has been a terrible disappointment to me,” 
he confessed. “ Of my father’s approval I did not 
feel very sanguine, but I did think that my mother 
would have taken my part. However, I have failed 
to — to enlist her sympathies. Why I hardly know, 
for my dear mother is anything but a worldly 
woman.” 

“ It is very natural that she should object to your 


POOR HARRY. 


165 


marrying beneath you, Mr. Whitestole,” said Bella 
quietly. “ Of course you must think no more about 
it.” 

But the curate was a resolute man as well as a 
dutiful son. He declared emphatically that his love 
was unalterable, and that as long as Bella did not 
love anyone else, he should cling to the hope of some 
day calling her his own. Only he admitted that, 
since he had at present no home to offer her, he 
could not ask her to consent to a formal engage- 
ment. 

The privilege of considering himself informally 
engaged was not denied to him, nor was he informed 
that there was a young sergeant of infantry who 
had the audacity to cherish aspirations resembling 
his own. Nothing is so cruel as to deprive a fellow- 
creature of the consolation of hope, and Bella’s was 
not a cruel nature. Besides, she really would not 
have felt justified in saying that neither of her 
suitors had grounds for hope. Mr. Whitestole was 
a very good man, who might some day be a Bishop ; 
on the other hand, Harry Lear was a handsome, 
soldierly young fellow, who might some day (though 
that was not quite so likely) be the colonel of a regi- 
ment. Therefore it seemed to her best to say very 


166 


POOR HARRY. 


little, to perform her daily duties with modesty and 
diligence and to trust in an overruling Providence 
for the ultimate solution of all doubts and difficul- 
ties. 

But that attitude, unexceptionable though it may 
be, is generally found an impossible one to maintain 
for any length of time. Bella Harvey maintained 
it for nearly six months, which, as everyone must 
allow, was a creditable performance. During those 
six months letters of an impassioned character 
reached her from Aldershot, and to these she never 
failed to send a discreet word or two of reply, be- 
cause one should always acknowledge correspon- 
dence. But it came to pass that Mr. Whitestole got 
wind of the said correspondence, and asked ques- 
tions concerning it which made it necessary to ex 
plain to him that he was not the sole aspirant for 
the schoolmistress’s hand. In her candid, innocent 
way, Bella told him that she admired brave men and 
brave actions, that she had a sincere affection for 
the playmate of her childhood and that she was 
touched by his constancy, although she had been 
unable to promise him what he had asked for. 

“ I can’t bear to — to disappoint those who care for 
me, Mr. Whitestole,” said she with a slight tremor 


POOR HARRY. 


167 


in her voice. “ But perhaps I am wrong ; perhaps 
a girl ought always to say either ‘yes’ or ‘no’ 
and have done with it.” 

Perhaps so *; but as Mr. Whitestole did not want 
Bella to say “ no ” to him and have done with him, 
he was open to admit that hesitation might, under 
certain circumstances, be permissible. The effect 
of her remarks, however, was to convince him that 
hesitation on his own part must last no longer ; and 
so, shortly after Christmas, he obtained leave from 
the Rector to go home for the inside of a week, in 
order, as he explained, that he might discuss certain 
urgent private affairs with his family. 

What those urgent affairs might be the guileless 
Mr. St addon" had no idea until after his curate’s 
return, when he was enlightened by a half-piteous, 
half-indignant epistle from Mrs. Whitestole, who 
wrote to tell him of the “ dreadful entanglement ” 
in which her dear Ernest had become involved, and 
who seemed to think that it was his business to dis- 
entangle her dear Ernest forthwith. The Rector 
did what he could. Personally he was inclined to 
agree with Mrs. Whitestole, holding that it is 
undesirable, in the abstract, that a gentleman should 
marry a village schoolmistress ; but the application 


168 


POOR HARRY. 


of abstract principles to particular instances is 
always apt to be troublesome, and he did not get the 
best of it in the friendly discussion to which he in- 
vited his curate. The latter pointed out, reasonably 
enough, that if he had not yielded to his mother’s 
entreaties and his father’s threats, he was scarcely 
likely to do so in deference to arguments which he 
must venture to call irrelevant. Was Miss Harvey 
vulgar? Was she uneducated? Was she in any 
respect unfitted to associate with ladies? Very 
well, then ; the question simply resolved itself into 
one of her present position. And from that posi- 
tion he proposed to remove her. 

“ Yes, yes,” answered the Rector ; “ that is all very 
fine. But how are you going to do it, my dear fellow ? 
How are you going to marry unless your father pro- 
vides you with the means ? ” 

Mr. Whitestole replied that he hoped in due season 
to obtain preferment which would render him inde- 
pendent of his father. 

“Oh, well,” returned the Rector, somewhat re- 
lieved, “ if you are content to wait until that day 
comes ” 

Rectors are very generally surprised when their 
curates obtain preferment, and mothers are always 


POOR HARRY. 169 

surprised if their sons do not, so that Mrs. White- 
stole found Mr. Staddon’s reply to her letter much 
less reassuring than the writer had intended it to he. 
She therefore appealed through the post to the bet- 
ter feelings of “ the young person ” herself, and the 
young person returned an evasive answer ; and then 
Archdeacon Whitestole wrote in terms which were 
scarcely clerical or becoming to his reverend brother 
at Motcombe Regis. Thus matters were working 
up towards an uncomfortable crisis in that hamlet, 
when news came to old Mr. Lear that his son had 
been ordered off to Suakim with drafts to join the 
other battalion of his regiment, which had already 
been dispatched thither. 

It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. The 
expedition which was sent to Suakim in the early 
part of the year 1885 to chastise Osman Digma can 
hardly be said to have conferred glory or profit upon 
the nation (which, nevertheless, was understood at 
the time to demand it) ; but it gave his opportunity 
to Sergeant Lear. He wrote in high spirits to his 
sweetheart, from whom, just before he sailed, he 
received a missive which gladdened his heart. “ I 
know you will do your duty, dear Harry,” Miss Bella 
wrote with unaccustomed warmth ; “ and you may 


170 


POOR HARRY. 


be sure that we shall be thinking of you and praying 
for you at home while you are fighting your coun- 
try’s battles.” 

Of course he could not begin fighting his country’s 
battles for some weeks ; and that, no doubt, was 
why she did not think a great deal about him dur- 
ing the interval. She had, instead, to think about Mr. 
Whitestole, whose suit was no longer a secret to her 
friends and neighbours, and to whom she was com- 
monly understood to be engaged, notwithstanding 
her assurances that such was not the case. The 
Rector’s thoughts and attention were also much 
taken up in the same quarter. After all, a man is 
more or less answerable for his curate, and Mr. Stad- 
don, having been a good deal ruffled by the Arch- 
deacon’s letter, was beginning to take his curate’s 
part. There is something, surely, to be said on be- 
half of an honest and steadfast attachment ; and the 
end of it was that Mr. Staddon undertook a flying 
visit to the other side of England for the purpose of 
saying this. He met with no success, nor did he get 
any thanks for his pains ; all that he gained by his 
journey being an intimation that he would do well 
to look out for a new curate, since it was Archdeacon 
Whitestole’s intention to remove his son at 


POOR HARRY. 


171 


once from the perilous neighbourhood of Motcombe. 

Mr. Staddon returned home by the night mail. 
Not being overburdened with pocket-money, he did 
not see his way to increasing the cost of a fruitless 
expedition by the amount of a London hotel bill, so 
that he reached Plymouth early in the morning and 
dozed in the waiting-room until such time as he 
could obtain a frugal breakfast. Thence he travelled 
by the branch line which brought him to a station 
within three miles of Motcombe Regis, and set out 
to perform the remainder of his journey on foot. It 
was a mild spring morning, the wind blowing gently 
from the westward ; the hedges in sheltered places 
were already sprinkled with green and the horse- 
chestnut buds were prepared to burst upon a little 
further encouragement. The Rector, who had started 
in a rather bad humour (for it is annoying to have 
spent the best part of ten pounds and to have re- 
ceived nothing but a nasty snub in return, not to 
speak of the worry of having to provide oneself with 
a new and unknown curate), grew more cheerful 
under the influence of fresh air and exercise and 
was quite inclined for a little neighbourly conversa- 
tion when, on nearing home, he caught sight of old 
Mr. Lear’s battered hat. 


172 


POOR HARRY. 


« Nice growing weather, Mr. Lear,” he called out. 

The old man was not working, as usual ; he was 
leaning over his gate and held a newspaper in his 
hand. “ You seen the Western Mornin ’ News, sir ? ” 
he asked in a rather hoarse voice. 

« No, indeed, I haven’t,” answered the Rector ; “ I 
quite forgot to buy it. Has anything particular 
happened since yesterday ? ” 

Old Lear raised his faded blue eyes, his lips moved, 
but no articulate sound issued from them. Then all 
of a sudden he broke out in a loud voice : “ My boy, 
he’ve been killed fightin’ the lousy Arabs.” 

The Rector’s heart gave a great bound, and a hand 
seemed to be clutching at his throat. “ Oh, my poor 
Harry ! ” he ejaculated. 

Poor Harry! — poor, rosy-cheeked, curly-headed 
Harry, who used to be the best treble in the village 
choir until his voice broke, and who had won many 
a cricket-match for Motcombe Regis by his swift 
bowling. Such a good boy ! — such a plucky boy ! 
High-couraged and a little impatient of control at 
times, as the best specimens of men and beasts 
always are, but a boy whose heart was in the right 
place, and who had never said or done a shabby 
thing. Ah well ! it is appointed to all men once to 


POOR HARRY. 


173 

die, dearly beloved brethren, and this mortal life is 
but the prelude to an infinitely higher and happier 
state of existence; and why should we mourn for 
those who are not lost, but gone before ? Something 
of this kind the Rector had said scores of times from 
the pulpit, honestly meaning and believing every 
word of it, but he could not manage to say it now. 
The fluent commonplaces died away upon his lips in 
the presence of a dumb sorrow for which no earthly 
consolation could be found. When he went into the 
house, where Mrs. Lear, with her apron tossed over 
her head, was rocking herself to and fro and moan- 
ing, he himself was dumb. He thought he ought to 
speak to her of the will of God and the comfort of 
faith, but he could not bring himself to perform this 
cruel duty — if, indeed, it was his duty — and all that 
he could say was, “ Oh dear ! oh dear ! what a sad 
misfortune ! ” 

Mrs. Lear took no notice of him ; and presently her 
husband led him out into the sunshine again, saying, 
with a sort of subdued pride, “ I should like just to 
read that theer newspaper story to you, sir, if I 
might make so bold.” 

The Rector seated himself upon the window-sill, 
while Mr. Lear slowly and laboriously spelt out the 


174 


POOR HARRY. 


account of the engagement which has since become 
known as the battle of Tofrek — how Sir John 
M‘NeilPs force had been surprised by the enemy 
whilst constructing a zareba ; how it had only been 
saved from annihilation by the gallantry and steadi- 
ness of the Berkshire Regiment ; how the men of the 
Naval Brigade had fought like heroes ; and how the 
attack had at last been repulsed, though not without 
terrible loss of life on both sides. All this Mr. Lear 
narrated without a break in his voice, but over the 
last paragraph he began to falter a little. 

“ 4 Arter the fightin’ was nearly over, a desultory 
fire — was kep’ up from the shelter of the mi — mimosa 
scrub, which proved sing’larly effective and might 
have largely swelled our list of cashalties, but for the 
desperate valour — desp’rate valour — Colour-sergeant 
Lear ’ ” 

Here the old man stopped abruptly, thrust the 
paper into Mr. Staddon’s hands, turned his back and 
walked away. 

The rector read on', not without difficulty (for he 
had not his spectacles with him, and somehow or 
other he could not keep his eyes clear, though he 
kept rubbing them ) — 44 But for the desperate valour 
of Colour-sergeant Lear, of the Berkshire Regiment, 


POOR HARRY. 


175 


who determined to dislodge the marksmen, and, 
leaping over the zareba, made for their place of con- 
cealment. This brave fellow accomplished his object, 
killing four of the enemy before he himself, pierced 
through and through by their spears, met a soldier’s 
death.” 

A soldier’s death! Well, there is no better way 
of dying, and if the fate of a sergeant is soon for- 
gotten, that of a field-marshal is not remembered 
for a great many years. Perhaps it does not matter 
very much whether one is a field 7 marshal or a ser- 
geant, remembered or forgotten. But what is to be 
said to two old people who have been deprived of 
their only child and whose remaining years of labour 
must necessarily be dull, lonely and objectless ? The 
poor rector could think of nothing adequate to say, 
so presently he went away, blaming himself for his 
inefficiency. Had he known all, he might possibly 
have found some relief in blaming Bella Harvey ; 
but he did not know all, and this solace was reserved 
for Mrs. Lear, who subsequently availed herself of it. 

As for Bella, she wept bitterly when the news was 
brought to her. That poor Harry’s life had been 
forfeited for her sake she had no doubt. He had 
risked it, she felt sure, in the hope of obtaining a 


176 POOR BARRY. 

commission as his reward, and it was dreadfully sad 
to think that he was now beyond the reach of any 
reward that the Queen or a school- mistress could 
bestow upon him. Yet, as Mr. Staddon had most 
truly asserted in a sermon which will always be re- 
membered in Motcombe Regis by reason of the 
prompt and emphatic contradiction which it elicited 
at the time, the objects upon which we set our 
affections are not always of a nature to promote our 
happiness, and it may be that if Harry Lear were 
living now and were married to the girl of his 
choice, he would be a soured and disenchanted man. 

Happily no such calamity has befallen the Rever- 
end Ernest Whitestole, who, shortly after he received 
the paternal command to resign his curacy, had the 
good luck to obtain a college living, and who at once 
took advantage of his independence to set the paternal 
wishes at defiance by leading his landlady’s niece to 
the altar. He has been forgiven : when one’s sons 
do things that can’t be undone, there is practically 
nothing for it but to forgive them and make the best 
of it. Besides, his wife is really such a nice, modest, 
ladylike person, that no one would ever suspect her 
of having an aunt who is a Plymouth dressmaker 
and another who keeps a small village shop. She 


POOR HARRY. 


177 


does not obtrude these aunts upon the public notice ; 
she does not invite them to stay with her, being per- 
suaded that, on her husband’s account, it would be 
wrong to do so. However, she employs one of them 
to make her frocks, which shows that she is alive to 
the claims of relationship, notwithstanding her trans- 
lation into a higher social sphere. 

Mr. Lear died not long ago. He never changed 
his habits, nor ceased to work hard, nor cared to 
speak much about his loss ; but there is some reason 
for believing that he died of a broken heart, which 
is often a lingering disease. At his expense a small 
marble tablet has been erected in Motcombe Regis 
Church to the memory of Colour-sergeant Lear, 
whose prowess is set forth thereon in the words of 
the newspaper telegram, which the old man carried 
about with him in his breast-pocket to the day of 
his death. That hero, like many another hero, has 
remained unknown to fame. Of “ desperate valour ” 
there is not likely to be any lack so long as England 
remains a nation; nor, let us hope, will English 
soldiers ever forget themselves so far as to doubt 
whether their valour and their lives are well expended 
in procuring a parliamentary majority for Mr. This 
or Mr. That. 













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